Mountain States Children’s Home in the US

I frequently visit Ukrainian children's homes. At first, I came there as a TV-journalist. Now, I visit these places when I bring donations for children-orphans. So, I understand very good what's mean "orphanage in Ukrainian".

Today I decided to write about American children's home and to compare it with our similar agencies. Firstly, I want to say that I'm going to compare not only only the financial side of these questions. Now, Ukrainian children's homes have everything necessary too (I'm speaking about Kyiv and Kyiv region). Besides a goverment, the homes for orphans in Ukraine are helped by businessmen, charity organisations.

In this article, we will talk about who our and American children's homes are brought up. After all, the main goal of any pedagogical institution is to grow a person, rather than provide more beautiful clothes, feed more delicious food or make more expensive repairs in the room. This is also important. But primarily WHO will come out of this institution.

In the United States, I happened to visit the Mountain States Children's Home. It is located in Longmont, state of Colorado. We can say this children's home is a small town on 155 acres of land. There are 3 houses for parents with adopted children, a school, a recreation center and a farm.

Houses

So-called parental houses are cottages, where orphans live and "dad" and "mom" work. They receive a salary for their work, they have a weekend and vacations. The Dad and the Mom, as a rule, work in couples - they are a husband and a wife. If they have their own underage children, they too live with their parents in this house.

Such a family way of life is not just created. Children in American orphan's homes are thus instilled with a model of the family - with traditions, values, rules and responsibilities. The girls understand well - how to serve the table, cook and clean the house, the boys are taught to take out the garbage, clean the snow, mow the lawns. I should to say that everyone in this place has a job on the farm among his duties!

School and rest

The task of the school is not only to improve performance, but also to focus on the strengths of the child, increase self-confidence and self-esteem.

Farm

The orphanage lives by charity: donations, as well as through the sale of pigs and hay. Because the guys are actively working on the farm. This helps to accustom to work from childhood, and also it instills the understanding that money is not taken from nowhere - they need to be earned.

What happens in Ukrainian orphanages? Our orphans have learned the lesson well, that all you have to think about is to ask everyone to give something who comes to the orphanage. And it does not matter what you brought with you this time. And, ask not candy or a new doll, but sorry, a new gadget or a camera for a few thousand dollars. It shows that there is no understanding that everything needs to be earned, and not received for the first request. In our children's homes there are specially trained people who wash a floor, prepare meal and put on a table therefore orphans don't do it. Because it is not necessary. Well, and what kind of upbringing of orphans can be in Ukraine? It's a big question. Unfortunatelly, without an answer. And this is not the problem of children and not even the problem of the administration of these institutions. The system is poorly tuned, or rather, originally built incorrectly.

This post was published thanks to the program "Open World", organized by the American Councils in Ukraine.