Visit to the Svalyava Infant Orphanage

Svalyava is a town about an hour away from Perechyn. Svalyava is well known among the boarding school crowd as the "infant orphanage." This is the place infants are taken when they are removed from their mothers, following a few days waiting period in the local hospital.

As I wrote before, one of the reasons we started the "Mother's School" project was to educate young people and build the capacity of mentors to help educate young people from the orphanage to reduce the rates of teen pregnancy among graduates of the Perechyn orphanage. Over the past five years, more than 50 lives births have occurred among 38 teenage mothers graduating from the school. Most of these children have ended up here - in the Svalyava orphanage.

Iryna's goal, by taking them to see the actual orphanage, was to make this process "real" for them. She wanted them to see the place and understand what happens when children come to this place. We were not able to go into the school, as this is forbidden by Ukrainian law (only those who are authorized to be there are able to go in). However, we heard from people who know about life in this place and we facilitated a discussion with the children. The message was not to suggest that the children aren't cared for in this place - they are certainly cared for as much as they can be in an institutional setting. But, the bond between a parent and a child begins very early and the message was that they should consider their actions and their readiness to care for a child before having one.

Two members of our group know this very well. One of them, whom you see here with her child, was only able to keep her child from this place because a community mentor took her and the child into her home, and she is helping to care for them both. Another young mother was not so fortunate and as she stood peering through the gates, I couldn't imagine what she was thinking wiht her child in there and her standing out here in the cold. She was on the verge of getting her child back when a quarantine was put into place at the orphanage and she learned she would not be able to visit the orphanage or take her child until this quarantine lifted. Quarantines are common in Ukraine, as the availability of vaccines and medicines to combat outbreaks of such things as Hepatitis, the flu, etc. are not available.

Many thanks to Erin Simms, the PCV in Svalyava, who arranged for us to have a classroom at her school where we could hear from presenters and have our discussion. Erin is hoping she might be able to work with the infant orphanage herself.