by Deone Benninghoven, M.S.M. (about the author)
Imagine your migrant parents were forced to abandon you. Basic things like shoes, clothes, food are beyond your 10yo reach. Forget the antiretroviral medicine that you need or a roof over your head and a clean and safe place to sleep. Now add the fact that you are an Afro-Ukrainian in Kharkov where hate crimes are on the rise.
Now imagine that someone told you about a safe place that you could go. This place helped you get basic needs met, including medicine, and this place helped you access education and community support. All of this costs $365 per year.
Possible? Yes. Through the Afro-Ukrainian Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project, such a place and services exist. "The project’s founder, Mr. Bawakana Michael Kityo, grew up in Uganda. He has lived in the Ukraine since 1999, returning to Uganda to visit his family. In September 2005, Mr. Bawakana Michael Kityo visited the Northern Uganda Districts and when he met 10 destitute orphans and vulnerable children, he realized he had come face to face with the AIDS epidemic. He offered to find sponsors to pay the school fees for the 20 children.
Ukrainian orphans
THE AFRO-UKRAINIAN ORPHANS | MySpace Video
The project grew from there. THE AFRO-UKRAINIAN ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN Project was incorporated in December 2008. A board of four directors in Ukraine and a board of two trustees in Uganda support and monitor the program. In 2008 Miss. Becky Adong was employed as the Project Director in Ukraine. She spearheaded a preschool program that has been added to the original sponsorship program.
THE AFRO-UKRAINIAN ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN Project is about communities coming together, in Ukraine and in Africa. It is about providing children with the resources they need to live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives. 'I want everyone to see Africa as a vibrant continent, full of possibility,' said Bawakana. . ..
Some of the Afro-Ukrainian children are neglected by there fathers/mothers who run back to Africa leaving these children fatherless/motherless and at the end raced because of there colour and because they have no fathers/mothers our work is to make these children feel at home and stay out of the street" (extracted on 7 March 2010 from http://www.myspace.com/afroukrainianproject).
The need will only increase since 100,000 to 6,000,000 migrant workers, refugees, and asylum seekers from China, Central and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the African continent traverse the Ukrainian border each year. People have basic needs. If there are jobs that no one else will do, there are many migrant workers willing to risk their lives and families to do them.
Like it or not, the face of the Ukraine and many European cities is changing quickly and more services are needed to meet the growing migrant-worker's need. Thank you Afro-Ukrainian
Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project for stepping in where the need is so crucial. For more information, please contact
President and Founder Bawakana M.K at afroukrainianproject@gmail.com. May we see and do something about the need in our communities. May we learn from and collaborate with others doing the same. Tomorrow will be Day 66 of the 365-day Appreciative Inquiry into what we what more of and the story will be about the Forbes' 2010 Altruist List, who is on it, what a few of them do, and why. Day 67 will be a quick outline of Appreciative Inquiry and a few new projects that are focusing on what works. Then, Day 68 will continue the weekly Rock On series. The hint for who it is this week is rugby. Weekly Recap: Download Recap_v1`2_20100307-wk9 Weekly Program: Download Program_v1`1_20100307_Wk10 |