First workshop for orphans in Ukraine. How orphanages make handmade items for sale
On Instagram, you can already buy bags and T-shirts with prints created by those who grow up in orphanages. We tell you how projects work, the purpose of which is to give orphans a fishing rod, not a fish
Children are our future; they are the people to whom we entrust our country with its potential and opportunities. Therefore, the most important task of schools, parents, and teachers is to invest in them as much knowledge as possible so that they can confidently look to the future. But what to do with those children who were not lucky enough to be born into a full, happy family and ended up in orphanages?
The organization that will be discussed supports such children: while they are still living in orphanages, the "ORPHAN EDUCATION CLUB" charitable foundation gives them a fishing rod, not a fish, at an early age, teaching them to earn money and gives them the knowledge that orphans will not receive at school or from teachers. The foundation takes care of children from six Kyiv orphanages. In total, more than 600 children receive help from them every year, and 80% of them enter vocational schools. But before the project's launch, this figure did not reach 1%.
By accident, through Instagram, we found stylish, interesting things that could easily appear on shop windows and shelves. Each of them was created using illustrations of children from orphanages. Read Rubryka's article to find out how they managed to do this.
"HANDCRAFTS by orphans"
As a legal entity, the foundation was registered last April, but it has existed much longer -— for about 10 years. The HANDCRAFTS by orphans project appeared in October 2019. Valentyna and a colleague went to a social startup competition in Kharkiv with no direct goal of getting a grant: the women wanted to get to know the grant-givers and only then announce the idea.
"In the end, everyone liked our idea so much that HANDCRAFTS by orphans took first place at the competition, and we began to actively develop it on the basis of the fund," says Valentyna Shatokhina, co-founder of the "ORPHAN EDUCATION CLUB" fund to help orphans.
This project is supported by the UN program for the reconstruction and development of the world and financed by the governments of Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland.
HANDCRAFTS by orphans is a project in which children learn to produce goods on their own: they make soap, create crafts, and draw. Pictures are scanned, put on shopping bags and T-shirts, and things are sold. Part of the funds goes to the account of the print's author, which they can use after 18 years:
"In this way, we change people's thinking. In orphanages, these children are consumers. They do not understand how the world functions outside this institution's walls and the laws of business. At our workshops, as small examples, we show the production cycle and sale of goods from start to finish. Children are happy to learn it. You would see how they change when they see a thing with their picture printed on it! They feel their significance; they know they are no longer useless," Valentyna explains.
And this is a really great initiative, but, as it turned out, not for Ukraine:
"From the sale of one product, a child can receive, conditionally, 50 hryvnias, 47% of which are taxes that must be paid. If these things were sold in large quantities, children could earn some money, but our people do not want to buy goods when they find out that an orphan made them. They say that the energy is bad," Valentyna says with regret about the narrow-mindedness of her fellow citizens.
"We need foreign donors because people here are not ready to help other people."
However, these goods are ready to be bought abroad and even in batches. Very soon, several boxes of things will be sent to Germany, and some goods are already displayed on the American ETSY site.
"Mentoring"
HANDCRAFTS by orphans is not the only project of the fund. In addition to it, many others are implemented. One of the largest is "Mentoring," the main goal of which is to give the child the maximum amount of knowledge about how they will be able to realize themself after leaving the boarding school.
"We developed the course together with our American colleagues. In it, we introduce pupils to more than 30 professions. This is a large complex of children's socialization, so they understand how to make a CV and where to place it. Recently, a production studio that teaches children how to process photos and videos joined us so that after the course, the children could earn money using these skills. These are survival courses. These are all the skills we usually get from our parents," Valentyna shares.
To help children, the foundation will organize crisis centers for children in difficult family circumstances, where they can come after school and take educational courses there. Quarantine was the impetus for this. Work has already begun on the project, but funding is needed to implement it. Now "ORPHAN EDUCATION CLUB" is looking for donors and like-minded people abroad.
If you want to support the project, you can buy orphans' works here.
