Perechrysta Orphanage

All the children at Perechrysta are ‘social orphans’; their parents unable to look after them for various reasons, mainly poverty or alcoholism. Some of them have been abused and some are simply dropped off at a local railway station and told to ‘find the orphanage’.

It was a tatty plastic doll, the size of an egg, peering out from the folds of a blanket. One of the children at Perechrysta orphanage cherished this little doll so much that they had hidden it in their bed. Out of everything I’d seen at the orphanage that day, this moved me most of all. I thought of children back home, bedrooms filled with toys, computer games, TVs, DVD players. The 100 or so children at Perechrysta sleep in dormitories crammed with beds made of rusty iron or flimsy wood, with thin foam mattresses, ripped and stained. There are no brightly coloured posters, cuddly toys or children’s books.

These are the first impressions experienced by one of the friends of Take Hope on their first visit to a Ukrainian orphanage.

Sergei Bejaskalov is the director of the Perechrysta Orphanage. A good-hearted man who clearly cares for the children who live there, but like many people in the Ukraine he is working with limited funds and resources.

Perechrysta orphanage is situated outside the town of Vinogradiv in its own grounds. The orphanage looks like an old Victorian building and houses between 100 and 120 children aged between six and eighteen years. They sleep in dormitories crammed with beds made of rusty iron or flimsy wood with a thin foam mattresses or pieces of foam. The toilets are in blocks of three with no partitions between each one. This means there is no privacy for the children using them. There are also outside toilets that are holes in the ground in a crumbling filthy block across the yard. There are no shower facilities in the main building so the children have to cross the courtyard once a week to a cold and draughty shower block no matter what the weather, to take a shower.

Although they have some education it is not officially recognised by the government or employers so the children enter the adult world unqualified and unprepared for life. Local attitudes don’t help, for reasons difficult to understand, these children are regarded as ‘mentally disabled.’ In the UK they would be classed as special needs. Many of these children are bright so it is a tragedy that their limited education hampers their chances even further. Sergei is working hard to secure places on vocational skills courses for the older children.

Whenever we visit the orphanage excited children who crave physical contact and attention surround us. We take photographs and they are eager to see their image on the camera. They love dancing and pop music just like our children.

Take Hope is dedicated to improving the lives of these children. We help in whatever way we can by collecting clothing, shoes, toys, bedding and toiletries for the children.

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