MARYNA POROSHENKO VISITS THE CENTRE “OUR KIDS”

 “The child gives birth to its parents”
(Stanisław Jerzy Lec)

International Family Day which is celebrated on May 15 is a very warm and home holiday. Founded in 1993, on the initiative of the UN General Assembly, this holiday quickly became popular all around the globe. Significant, that on this very day the Maryna Poroshenko, First Lady of Ukraine, visited the Child Protection Centre “Our Kids”. She examined our premises together with Mykola Kuleba, Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children's Rights, Barbara-Maria Monheim, founder of the German-Polish-Ukrainian Society and Mykola Knyazhytskyy, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Culture and Spirituality.

Mrs Maryna Poroshenko and other distinguished guests attended the social family home to children facing vulnerabilities and who are deprived of adequate parental care, including children from the East of Ukraine. They witnessed that we treat kids as our own children and carry out our main duty: promote the protection of children facing vulnerabilities, give them a shelter, and strive to create safe living conditions for them. Barbara-Maria Monheim guided a tour around the territory of the Centre, where guests saw a heat supply station, inspection well, and learned about the work of the geothermal system unit that supplies the Centre with heat and hot water all year round. From their early childhood, we teach kids to treat the environment carefully and to use minimum energy resources. That way, the Centre strongly supports the development of energy efficient technologies and renewable energy sources. “We need to involve more concerned and responsible persons and to share our your experience of implementation of similar technologies and projects, because it not only concerns the environment but also means large savings, which this kind of institutions urgently need. It is an excellent example of European standards already implemented in Ukraine”, - said Maryna Poroshenko.

Besides to Green technologies, the Centre is working towards promoting a healthy lifestyle among children and Mrs Maryna Poroshenko joined our kids at the playground where children practised their favorite sports - roller hockey.

Guests of the Centre watched the rehearsal of the performance “On the Other Side of the Sun” within the Cycle II of the “Inclusion” Project. The project aims at rehabilitation, correction and development of children through the social and cultural development and their adaptation in society. They also participated in filming the Project “On the Other Side of the Sun” directed by the children from the ATO area living in the “Our Kids” Centre. Those were the kids who got special attention by Maryna Poroshenko. It was clearly determined that today our main task is to help them to forget the shelling and bombings, sleepless nights and constant fear for their lives so they could remember that the life without war, that they had before those horrific events, exists. 

Addressing the audience, Mrs Poroshenko said: “The atmosphere in which these children are living now is curing and helps to open children’s souls. Just take a look at their talents! Look how they embroider vyshyvankas with their own hands, how they play hockey, take pictures, sing, dance, and all this is a rehabilitation that will make possible for them to grow as real Ukrainians. After all, future Ukraine depends on how we bring up these children”.

After the tour, the guests shared their impressions of the meeting and took a joint photo. The First Lady presented the children a gift, the camera to work in film laboratory, and wished each child soon find a family comfort.