Caryn Salapka holds an orphaned baby during our January 2009 mission trip to Ukraine.
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Ukraine’s Orphaned Children Hunger for Love
To love and be loved is the essence of all humanity and the substance of our souls. A baby is born with a need to be loved and never out grows it. Love is our greatest privilege and our greatest gift. We may forget many things, but we will never forget love. A life without love is like a sunset without the sun, a candle that burns without light, and a heart that beats without feeling. A life without love is empty and has no meaning.
In the country of Ukraine, this seemingly dark and lifeless existence is a harsh reality for thousands of innocent children that have been abandoned by their families and living in orphanages. These children are soon labeled worthless and marked by society as second class citizens. They often receive inadequate nutrition, get few medicines to relieve them when they suffer, and have many needs that are seldom met. The desire to be accepted as a child and loved as a child grows stronger as unconditional love and hope disappear.
Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Eastern Europe and also one of the poorest, with children often bearing the brunt of chronic poverty. Although the fall of Communism has brought about considerable personal freedom, the Ukrainian economy has suffered immensely. High levels of poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, and the inability to survive contribute to parents being unable to care for their own children leaving thousands abandoned.
Today in Ukraine, there are an estimated 120,000 orphaned children living in orphanages and thousands more living on the streets. In a country where the average standard of living has decreased by eighty percent over the past fifteen years, poverty and sickness are brought on by the inability to provide adequate nutrition and healthcare. Least able to fend for themselves are the children who have been abandoned and orphaned.
The greater tragedy is that a significantly larger number of orphans who are in orphanages are what are called “social orphans”. This means that they are orphans because they have suffered physical abuse, violence, or abandonment by one or both parents. Many of these children are placed in crowded orphanages that do not have nearly enough funds for clothing, educational materials and many other basic essentials for orphans. The budget that they receive for food is extremely inadequate and malnutrition is often a serious problem.
As orphans pass through the system, living conditions deteriorate and life becomes more hopeless for them. After the age of five, the chance of adoption for an orphan in Ukraine is only twenty percent, which decreases as they get older. For those who are not adopted, after they graduated from the system, most have nothing to look forward to in life. The cold, dark, and loveless orphanages where these kids grow up are nothing compared to the horrors they face when entering the real world. About ten percent of these orphans will commit suicide before their eighteenth birthday. Approximately seventy percent of the boys leaving the orphanage will turn to a life of crime, and about sixty percent of the girls will be involved in prostitution.
Angels for Orphans is an all volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to providing food, clothing, education and hope to orphaned and neglected children. We are an organization actively involved in our local communities and in orphangages throughout Ukraine.