What About Education? Part 4

Community reaches to the children!

Music is the common denominator.

 In What About Education Part 3, we painted a picture of life in an orphanage in a few different settings. The statistics used in http://ukrainetoutah.blogspot.com/p/facts-about-ukrainian-orphanages.html left us with a massive problem in the lives of orphaned children. Can we put a dent in the problems of the lives of the orphaned children using education?

Beginning with the tragedy of suicide, how could education give children a reason to live? In our program in Marganets, we first touched the lives of the children by improving their self-images with provision of clothing chosen for them. When computers were introduced to their curriculum, their view of themselves was raised to an equal playing field of their peers in the local community. In addition, they now had a new challenge that was interesting to them and within reach.

Someone once told me that prostitution was a better life than that of alcoholism. I had to think on that for a while before I understood the meaning of that statement. Even so, it is not acceptable. Through education, girls need to be taught to respect their bodies. It doesn’t matter the foundation that this respect is coming from, whether religious, governmental laws, or simple morality. What matters is that girls learn that their bodies are not a commodity. Even more so, selling their bodies will not solve their problems. They must be taught this truth.

Some boys will enter a life of crime no matter what their education level is. However, many boys don’t have to make this decision out off desperate circumstances. The boys in the Marganets orphanage have a number of opportunities to focus on that will prepare them for the work environment. Three of these areas are wood sculpture and carving, computer graphics and Office processers, and music and dance. MUCH supports two of the three. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, is basic, but these children need to learn skills that they use creatively in the learning process. They need to see the application immediately. The nature of boys is active. They need to be challenged physically as well as mentally. The correct elements of education can do that.

If twenty percent do find work, how many children are we talking about? The average orphanage in Ukraine houses between one hundred and one hundred and fifty children. Of one hundred and fifty children, 20% is thirty children. That suggests that 130 children in each of the 1000 + orphanages will live a life of failure, if they choose to survive. This is the 21^st century, we surely can do wetter than that. We are talking about a country that has 100% literacy.

In What About Education? Part 5 we will look deeper into the educational needs of the particular special needs children that Sveta and I help through MUCH. As we make efforts to understand the educational system for our children in the orphanages, we see our limits as to how we can help.