My name is Andrey and my wife is Olga. We’re a Ukrainian foster family from the Pryazovskiy district of the Zaporizhzhia region. Our family history started six years ago when we saw a public service announcement on TV called “This Child Needs a Family”. It took us a great deal of time to decide we should start and how everything would subsequently go. We basically had no idea about orphans. We believed that such TV stories about orphans are unique and rare. However, the more we researched about foster families, the more we realized what an enormous issue the plight of orphans is in our country and all around the world.
We raise our children with the idea that there is nothing as valuable as human’s life and if you want to change the world, you should start with yourself. We practice what we preach, so my wife and I quit our quiet daily routine and began to gather the paperwork required to create our foster family. We soon realized that our fear of the difficulties in the process was nothing compared to the fear of lonely abandoned children who have no mom and dad. My wife and I grew up in large families, so we both believe that a big family is what makes one truly happy.
We have three biological children. Six years ago two of them got married and moved out and our youngest child was just finishing school. That was another reason why we decided to welcome orphans into our family. At first we adopted three siblings – two girls and a boy. They started to call us “Mom” and “Dad” from the very beginning. Four years later we decided to adopt a ten-year-old boy, Sasha, since our kids wanted a brother so much. We’re a happy family of four adopted children now. Our children are amazing. They are our great helpers. The girls assist Mom with cooking, baking, laundry, cleaning and milking cows. The boys are Dad’s right hand, especially when he is away for some days. Our sons are brilliant at men’s work. We spend all our free time together. We often make picnics (for example, we enjoy “baked potato” picnics). We love reading books aloud, and watching interesting movies. We try to spend as much time together as possible.
At the end of last year, we attended a conference in Kyiv held by The Alliance For Ukraine Without Orphans which inspired us to adopt more children. We want to open a family-oriented children’s home. Our local district services support our great desire to give orphans a real home. We are currently facing some difficulties, though. Our house cannot be enlarged, so we badly need a new house or a complete renovation of our current one, so we can raise more than five children there. We will be forever grateful to you for giving us a chance to bring our warm and loving home to more orphans! We really hope for your kind support in our big project. Thank You!
For further information please contact the volunteers of “The Happy Child” Foundation
