At risk of being forgotten. In Russia and Ukraine, and all parts of this earth, thousands of kids are living on the streets, in very poor  family conditions, run-down orphanages and abandoned as babies in children's hospitals.

 In the former communist countries, the young kids survive by begging.  The older ones (5-up) earn a living through scams and prostitution.  Those that still live at home endure small dirty, two room apartments with as many as eight adults. Alcoholism is epidemic.  Hunger and abuse drive kids to the streets to either hang out and work in crime or end up living in sewers, abandoned buildings or on top of buildings.

 It began in 1991 when the former Soviet Union disbanded. Unemployment escalated, alcohol use increased and poverty overpowered families.  Parents lost hope and babies were then, and continue to be, abandoned, at hospitals because the parents  can no longer take care of them.  

Shepherd's Purse is a registered non-profit raising awareness and supplies.  We take teams and supplies to the the few agencies that work with the kids and try to help in any way we can. 

Here is how Alla Dobrynina (former Director of Dr. Haaz in Kherson) put it:

When in 1999 we started our ministry, the situation in our country and in our city was at the top of its economic crisis. Many factories and plants didn't function in our city. At that time I worked as a nurse and since 1993 I was receiving my wages not in money but in flour, old canned food and so on that was stocked in shops. Ever since the fall of the USSR the problem with the street kids started to grow. Because of the unemployment many people would involve themselves to some trading business, others would go abroad, those who were more active would open clubs, cafes and personal businesses, and some would just get always drunk. The level of theft and robbery went up. People would loose their homes. Doubtful estate companies started to arise. Because of the poverty people wanted to change their homes to smaller and less expensive ones. If they would ask for help from such doubtful companies they would lose everything - home, money, and often their documents. The people would become poorer and poorer, drunk parents would always fight, there was nothing to eat... But at the same time there were people who quickly were becoming richer and richer.  Drunk parents would lose their custody, the children were taken to orphanages where they would escape from. 

I've often asked myself a question why would they escape from orphanages? To my mind, if a child gets to an orphanage in the early age (from 1 to 7), they get accustomed and stay there. But if a teenager is sent to an orphanage, it's difficult for them to adapt because they remember and love many things from their past life, and they express their disagreement by escaping. 

There were children in the hatches who escaped from orphanages plus those whose parents are extremely poor, or drunkards, or where family relations are destroyed. At that time I heard the statistics about such poor children in our region (there were about 5,000) who would wander in flocks as hungry dogs and would do lots of evil.  But it's 2006 now and those children have grown. As almost all of them had criminal childhood and youth, by law they could be put to prisons since they are 18. Now many of these children are in prisons, some of them have yet returned to orphanages, some died because of alcohol, some are still bums but they are grownup bums now.

The situation in the country was changing little by little. As soon as the borders were open many Christian missions started helping the orphanages and less children started to escape. Different Christian ministries as ours or Galina's were doing everything they could to help such children. The police would make raids to catch the children and send them back to orphanages. With time, as the government changed, they legislated a law saying that each orphan gets 319 grivnas a month to their account. A child gets the status of "orphan" if their parents lost custody. 

As for the situation with the street kids now, in my opinion, there not as many,... the police are  trying to catch them. But there are a lot of poor children left. Sergey's wife (your interpreter) works at school and she says that there are very many poor children now. In her class more than half of the children have only one parent or are raised by grandparents. The question is where the parents are? ... In prison, alcoholics, divorced, earn money in Russia, Poland, Turkey, etc. So, these children often hang around in the streets.

Editor's Note: The climate in Ukraine is evolving yet still a major problem.  In other parts of Ukraine and especially in Russia, there are still thousands living with  poor families, some sleep or live on the streets, thousands are in poor orphanages and babies are still abandoned in children's hospitals.  This is where Shepherd's Purse comes in.  We are trying to help, in any way we can.