What About Education? Part 8

Happy days for today!

Some of us will be looking for work soon!

Continuing our discussion about morality and sex education in Ukraine, we should remember what it was like to be a child looking for answers about sex. In the orphanage/boarding school (OBS) that I focus on in this series, the children have many opportunities to watch movies, which have been approved by the administration, without supervision. Part of the reason that movies containing sex and violence are approved is because it is better to satisfy the curiosity of the children within the walls of the OBS. Unfortunately, there is no discussion or evaluation with the children about what the children see. They are left to make their own conclusions.

In Soviet times, mothers would not necessarily prepare their daughters for puberty and the biological changes that would take place. Imagine experiencing this in an OBS. I have watched the girls grow up over the past ten years and I was aware of the ones who were having difficulty dealing with their growing pains. It was obvious which girls were interested in boys, and which were lost in their self-consciousness. In either case, the girls need good examples and clear understanding of sexual morality.

When we started our program, a number of years ago, the focus came about because some of the children were sniffing glue. As we battled this chemical abuse toward the body, we began to understand other problems that the children were encountering. The program that we support, provided by a local church, reaches out to the children before they lose their innocence, if that is possible in an OBS. There are no funds available in the OBS budget to provide a program like this, so MUCH looks to a local church that already has this type of program. It is a big task. MUCH has been making a monthly donation to the church for someone to come to the OBS to teach the children. The personal attention helps the children, but we see bigger changes because of the program.

Looking at national statistics, I see big reasons to be afraid for the children. After leaving the OBS system, an alarming number of the children become involved in crime, end up in prison, or commit suicide. The very sad statistic is that 60% of the girls become involved in prostitution. There are many reasons for this, many are not their own decision, but the question remains, “What can we do to change the future potential of the children?” MUCH is opening doors to create new opportunities in education.

This church-run program is one of the three programs that MUCH supports at this OBS. In What About Education? Part 9, we will look into the computer program that is piquing the interest of many of the children. Their enthusiasm is on the rise.

What About Education? Part 7

Unless you have seen their eyes ...

 In 2002, I was introduced to the children of one orphanage in Ukraine. After touring the facility and experiencing the hopelessness of the situation, my heart was broken. When I was spoken to, I could not reply. This reaction was only because of what I saw. It was not until many years later that I began to understand the hidden secrets of life for these children in the orphanage system.

A bit of history will shine a bright light on what I will share with you in this article and the next. Stepping back in time about thirty years, during the Soviet Union and shortly after its break-up, sex, having children, and abortion, were looked at quite differently than they are today in Ukraine.

In soviet times, sex was taboo outside of marriage. Within a marriage, as children were conceived, they were a welcome addition to the family. In many cases though, if the second child was conceived too soon after the first, abortion was a normal option. There was little, if any, information available for the general population about sex and contraception. (Actually, all information that was available was controlled by the Soviet Government. The Soviet system was anti-family, focusing on work and reproduction of workers.) Little attention was given to planning to have or not to have children. Abortion was considered a normal solution for unwanted pregnancy. It was not uncommon for a woman to have ten or more abortions in her lifetime.

Today, Ukraine is filled with written information, the Internet is available to everyone who can afford it, and sex outside of marriage is looked at with much more freedom. Abortion is no longer the normal solution, but rather contraception and planning are desirable. Even so, abortion remains a solution in some cases.

With this in mind, consider the orphanage system. It is a boarding school for children from difficult homes and children who have no parents. This system is a government facility. In 2002, there was very little attention given to the children in the orphanages. The children were treated as non-citizens, therefore their education about sex and morality was limited, if not completely absent. When children would go home for the summer break, if they had family to go to, a girl might return to the orphanage in September, pregnant. Few, if any options were available. The doctor or nurse would take the child to the hospital for an abortion.

In this short article, you can see the great need of the children, particularly the girls, in the orphanage system to be educated about sex and morality. What About Education? Part 8 will continue the discussion about the real needs of the children to understand sex and morality. Their future depends upon it.