Our 2014 year

Dear Friends and Supporters, 

Since the political changeover and as a result of the continuing hostilities in the east of the country, Ukraine has been going through a difficult time, and there is no end to this turmoil in sight. For the Centre “Our Kids”, too, 2014 has been a challenging and exciting year. Whereas many children and families in the country have been suffering from shortages of electricity and warm water, we are able to cover our needs with our modern geothermal heating system. Thanks to your support we have, with the exception of minor constraints, been able to continue providing our children with the appropriate care. Since November we have considerably extended our capacity and taken children from the war torn region into our social families. Our Centre is now almost operating at full capacity. We are pleased to enable so many children to spend Christmas in a warm and friendly family atmosphere.

Our children spent their summer holidays in a sanatorium near Odessa on the Black Sea, after which our regular in-line hockey training course was held on our sports ground. The Minister for Youth and Sport, Dmytro Bulatow, paid us a visit. An exhibition training with the world-famous, former Ukrainian international ice hockey players, Dmytro Khryystych (NHL) and Vyascheslav Zavalnyuk (KHL), was our sporting highlight of the year.

During the autumn holidays our children visited a Coca Cola factory. Since October, together with friends from our neighborhood, they have been actively involved in our second inclusion project in Kiev, focusing on rehearsals for dance, choir and theatre performance. The documentary film about our first inclusion project of 2012/13 was shown in the Frankfurt Film Museum, at the Berlin cinema, Filmkunst 66, as well as on television, on ARTE. The film can be seen on-line at our Centre’s new website: www.ourkids.eu .

In December, in conjunction with the Internationale Gesellschaft für Mobile Judendarbeit (ISMO) and numerous local partners, we started an analysis of the social situation in the Kiev borough of Dnieprowsky Rajon, which is where our Centre is located. The 25 participants in the project will be introduced to the concept of the mobile youth work of the ISMO.

Our society is actively engaged in the creation of the Ukrainian Child Rights Network (UCRN). This has been possible thanks to the generous support of the German Foreign Office. We have also benefitted from advice from the German League for Child Protection. On 17. and 18. December we held an international conference on this subject at our Centre “Our Kids”. The legal foundation for this association is to be laid next spring.

At the end of what has not exactly been an easy year for us I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to you all for your very generous support. We look forward to working together with you in the future. On behalf of all our children and the staff at Our Kids we wish you  a peaceful and prosperous New Year 2015.