"For 15 years the Light House exists thanks to support from the community. And this is a declaration that Ukraine still lives."
Interview with Salesian Deacon Oleksandr Chumakov, founder and head of the Odesa charitable orphanage Light House.
The history of the Odesa Light House is difficult to describe. To have the right to exist, the establishment lived through difficult times standing against the authorities and those who wanted to seize the building. Thanks to the self-sacrificing work of the initiators of the shelter, especially Deacon Oleksandr Chumakov, today the Light House functions, boldly looks to the future, and realizes its task – to help street children. When the inspirer of this project visited RISU we asked him to describe the situation of homeless children, how it is today, and about the past and present of the Light House.
— The Light House is about to celebrate its 15th anniversary. Please tell us how this all began.
— For me this all began on Christmas Eve 1995, in a tiny basement, which we now own – now it is where our volunteers gather. Previously in the basement was located a small shelter with a social-educational program. We used it as a temporary shelter for homeless children. In 1995 there were so many of them. But the space was partially underground, not accommodated for children, and regularly flooded with fecal water. Because of that the medical department wanted to shut it down, but there was not other place in the city. I even agreed that the space is not suitable for children, and I decided with my four student helpers to shut down the program.
And when we gathered for a quiet dinner before Christmas, we lit three candles, one which we placed on the windowsill, to give light to those who have no home and are wandering. At that moment the door opened and six small homeless children, dressed in some rags in the freezing temperatures, stood at the threshold.
Then I said that this is a sign from God, and if so then I am not interested in any other authorities other than the rule of God which send us these children.
Thus began the difficult road for the Light House, the road of struggle for at least the minimal human worthy existence for these homeless children.
It continued to be hard because we needed the city and regional authorities to agree to the existence of the problem of children’s shelters. Overall, it was problematic to agree with such a fact for all those who had power, to agree that the problem of homeless children, children who for years live in sewage hatches, in Odesa’s catacombs, and sometimes just under the fir trees in Lenin Park, exists. I was very astonished when my acquaintance, after the homeless were reported about on TV, said verbatim: “After these images when I went outside I saw these children, saw that there were a lot of them.” Thus, understand that she saw the homeless children only after she saw them on TV, but before that they were the same. They existed, but internally the officials, who came from the bosom of the communist regime, did not want to accept the fact as reality, and when they did not accept it, then the homeless children, so to say, did not exist.
Therefore, our road from the beginning was extremely difficult. Officials did not comply; the children did not have any documents, because they lost their homes from apartment manipulations which were widespread in the early 1990s, when people, not knowing the legislation, privatized their homes, and the officials consciously filled out something incorrectly. Then, “snatching” them on manipulation, on “swindling,” people were left without homes, children ended up in the streets. And without documents the children did not exist.
By the way, today, after 15 years, this situation still hasn’t been resolved. The fact of existence of a child today, according to the legislation, is still not grounds to recognize that the child exists. Until the child has a certain amount of documents, the child is regarded as if some apparition, and for apparitions there is a place, now in children’s shelters, but even then the child, so to say, is half-existent. A normal situation would be, in the words of our president, when “money goes to children”: there is a child and the state allots money to the child. The money goes where the child is. The same goes for when there is a present child; the child should be registered for presence, and then registered for the place of residence.
In this regard, the situation still has not changed. It is important to ask the question, like the ancient Romans: if a certain fact exists, then there is someone who is interested in this. If there is a fact of an unchangeable situation, then it means in that state, there is someone who is interested in a half-existent child, without documents. Maybe, someone will come who will go further, will clear up why this question is not solved.
Returning to the subject, what in any case was able to be done, first of all, the officials, in the first place thanks to the journalists who began to report on this problem, were forced to accept the fact that the problem exists. It turned out that the police and medical staff knew about the existence of these children, they often saw them; if something happened, then they first went to the children, took them in for a few hours, beat them, very roughly, found out who, what, how, gathered information, then noted down these children, exactly like in years 37-39, for all sorts of committed crimes. And the children, only so they would not be beaten, signed everything that they were recorded for, took responsibility for that which they did not do. If the child was younger than 14 years old, then he was let free, since he was not triable, if older, then he was sent to prison for half a year. Sometimes, in camps, in the prisons the children had it better than on the streets. I personally was encountered with the phenomenon that teenagers often even want to end up in prison when there is frost, hunger. For example, one boy told me that, not knowing that the Light House existed, roamed the streets looking for where police stood near some store so that they would see him steal, catch him and take him to prison, because he was freezing in the streets. He wanted to spend the winter in jail. There were many such moments in the middle 1990s. At the same time it’s necessary to stress that during that time there was not one social establishment for the protection of these children, other than the receivers-distributors.
There, behind the bars, which is now no longer a secret, near the entrance there are first two lavatories, and then immediately two lockdown rooms – a separate one for girls, and a separate one for boys: boards instead of beds, slightly heated floor, and the walls covered in a “fur coat,” as they called it, thus, rough plaster so that the children, as explain the police, did not bang their heads against the wall. I was present when representatives of a German delegation asked why there were lockdown rooms for children. The response was the following: if a child continuously cries and doesn’t want to settle down, then we place him in the lockdown room, if he doesn’t calm down, then we “understand” that he is mentally ill. After than, when we discover the “mentally ill,” we arrange with the regional psychiatric hospital to transfer the “sick.”
I explain all of this to show how there were too many problems, but we were able to change the situation for today, first of all, because at the beginning of this difficult path, in spite of any reproach, gossip, the Light House spoke, spread information, gave it to wide circles of the society, to the journalists. Today it is difficult to say if in Odesa if the police would dare beat a child, for a long time the receiver-distributor hasn’t been working. In Odesa there are 5 state shelters were children stay in very good conditions, and it is also worth noting that the children are treated well. The situation has changed substantially, but to reach that point we had to go through an almost tragic road.
— How old are the children that today live in the Light House?
— When we only began, even children as young as 4 or 5 came to us, who lived on the street. For example, there were refugees from Moldova, and when they came I asked where they were during the fierce frost. They said they slept under the booths at the market. When I asked how they didn’t freeze, the five-year-old boy answered that they “lit a fire from woodchips.” At that moment I though I would go insane.
Later everything began to change. The shelters that were established first took in the youngest children. Due to this there no longer grew new generations of street children, they ended up in the shelters, and from there they were adopted. There actively works a program of national adoption. Today homeless children on the street are mostly teenagers – 13- to 19-year-olds. They are in the worst situation because they will not be sent to boarding schools, they are too old, so to say, but they never went to school, they are illiterate. However, often their minds are normal, they are talented, they want to learn. For example, one of our children told me he wanted to study. I said he should register for evening school so he can have some document. But he said he wants to study not for the document, but so he can feel like everyone else. For him education is not needed for a formal diploma, but for an inner feeling of belonging to the human community. And now in the Light House we mostly work with teenagers, we have a program to help combat illiteracy. This work is very intense. Together with me work six pedagogues and psychologists.
In addition, today three schools have responded to the needs of these children: construction, car mechanics, and railroad. These institutes are open to the problems of the orphan children. Many of our children after completing these construction lyceums worked in construction, and the current crises affected construction and they were left with no work. This was a difficult time.
All the older children who left their homes, some already had their own families, and when they ended up in a difficult situation they approached the “family home,” the Light House. In this situation more often appeared one more positive of the Light House. When a child stays in a state orphanage, after she leaves the home, the guardianship stops. And if in the future the child encounters difficulties, she does not have the possibility, as others, to return home for advice, for support. A child that was under state guardianship, after she turns 18 years old, the guardianship ends. Children that grew up in the Light House, in a non-governmental establishment, have the possibility to return, like it’s their home, when there is the need. This demonstrates unbelievable significance of informal guardianship, which does not end when a child turns 18. This guardianship does not have an established end or boundary. As a result, the children develop faith in their personal future; this builds, strengthens, and gives certain optimism.
— So now there are practically no young children in the establishment, can this can be said about all of Ukraine, or are there centers where children’s misfortune is felt more acutely?
— As for Odesa, there are no young children on the streets. This is confirmed by everyone who works with homeless children. This is true not only for Odesa but for all south-central Ukraine. For example, the youngest of our children is 13; the oldest is 19 and half.
At the same time, children’s misfortune, as is confirmed by volunteers and representatives of social organizations, is concentrated in Donetsk and Luhansk. These territories can be called oligarch centers, where oligarchs don’t know measures in money. Certainly, they give large amounts of money to so-called charity. This money is directed not in the direction where it will build, renew, but so to say, where it will vanish. This money is lost, there is no result.
As for the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, one man described how when he was returning on a train from Russia to Ukraine, in Donetsk he became witness of how a woman walked among the passengers and asked to sell a child for 2,500 UAH. Immediately, she showed all the necessary documents, and even showed the ready deed. In these regions, as I mentioned above, children’s misfortune is the worst.
Thus, today it would make sense to go to Donetsk and Luhansk for missionary work. But the only ones who so far decided to go outside of Galicia are Bishop Andrij (Sapeliak), who recently turned 90, and his younger brother Father Vasyl Sapeliak, who is 87 years old. They went to a tiny town called Verkhnodniprovsk, which is near Dniprodzherzhynsk, where they organized an Oratory School, and work with the youth. Young priests want to be in L’viv since there are a lot of educated youth, which responds to various projects, because in L’viv there are also poor people, with whom there is a need to work. So, thus far, those who would take that step into the darkness have not come forward. This requires missionary sacrifice.
At the same time, it is necessary to state that Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhia, Odesa, and Simferopol for almost two years do not have such a problem. A police report in Odesa describes how during the summer 79 homeless children or run-away children were detained. This is a normal amount, which is provoked by the presence of a large sea. Teenagers leave home to go swimming, but in addition to this everything is fine with them, there are no conflicts.
As for comparing the current statistics with past statistics, then it is necessary to state the presence of one more problem – the raised indices of children’s homelessness in past statistics. This was especially stressed during the round table, which was organized by the Ministry for Family, Youth, and Sport. At the gathering, all the leaders of the organizations that work with the homeless, especially with homeless children, confirmed that the past data showing that in Ukraine there were 2.5 million homeless children is too high. Now they say that there aren’t any, and that brings up the question of where that many children could have gone. All these children supposedly were distributed among large cities. Even if we say there are 15 such cities in Ukraine, then in Odesa there would have to be 100 thousand homeless children. Imagine that the city has that many homeless children. This is an epidemic. At the worst moment in Odesa there were about one thousand homeless children, no more, and most likely less. But a few hundred homeless children in a city is already a catastrophe. Thus, the matter consists not in the large numbers, but in the fact of the existence of these children on the streets at all.
Another question consists of why such raised indices of homeless children were given. For each child there are benefactors, especially from the West, who tried to give some financial support. They needed to show a huge amount of poverty, and that is what they did. As a result, the officials made our country a destitute country.
An important factor of today is that homelessness was overcome without any aggressive methods of influence, and, to thank God, not like in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina where death squadrons eliminated all the homeless children. In Ukraine this did not happen. Not one Light House was responsible, but many small and large social groups. The heroic work of the community dedicated to overcoming this problem is what really conquered the situation.
— During upbringing in the Light House is a religious aspect stressed, is a confessional approach clearly expressed?
— In our home, almost from the very beginning, was a tiny chapel. I am a Salesian monk and thus needed to have my space to pray. We never invited the children to pray. Then one time when I was praying I saw that almost all the children stood behind me. And although I was praying very quietly, they all carefully listened and prayed together with me. Furthermore, the way homeless children pray is not like most people: they have some sort of transparent attitude toward God, not even like children with homes who add some children’s imagination to their perception of God. These homeless children, “marginal” children and teenagers, plainly believe. Not being able to see God doesn’t mean anything to them. “There is a lot we don’t see,” they say. They don’t need any sort of notion, fantasy, fable. They directly appeal to God. In certain moments I learned from them how to pray.
But we never highlight a specific confession, in order not to hinder a child from using the home. And most importantly, it is done not to buy religiosity with a slice of bread, as some confessions did in the 90s.
Faith can’t be bought with a slice of bread; it is too great of a thing: one can starve and 
stay faithful; one can have that bread with no faith at all. Thus, religiosity in the formal sense was never dominating in our establishment, though everything was transfused with the presence of God.
That presence of God often had a lot in common with the letters of Mother Teresa from Calcutta, which I read while I was in Poland. I never thought that I would live through this in my own life, so clearly: when on the threshold appears a homeless child, dirty, in rags, and you understand that on the threshold stands homeless God, who never has a place among beings because He is beyond. And here He is always homeless and requests from you the homelessness He has. Then in the shelters arises an incomparable feeling. I once called this an eschatological community, that in this destitution, exclusivity from the world we live already truly in some sense in the Kingdom of God, beyond the worlds. For me the most my happiness comes from that fact that I was accepted by these homeless children. Many people had a hard time understanding my happiness, especially representatives of various criminal groups, who were convinced that my interesting in the Light House had something to do with obtaining some financial profit.
— Please say on what money does the Light House function?
— From the beginning of our existence one of the principle conditions I set was to not take any grants for our work. If our work is to be effective and valuable for the community, then the people which the Lord will call to help us will be found. Today we have more than 20 people from Odesa, I won’t say they are extremely wealthy, but who regularly, 1-2 times a month, either buy something or we together pay for the municipal and other services. This is how we cover all the costs for the Light House.
In addition, there are donors from the city Regensburg, they also are not an organization, do not give grants. These are people who once came and saw, and were shocked that something like this exists. They visited us a few times. And then, upon returning to their homeland, gathered a circle of supporters of the Light House who regularly collect money for the home. From this money we have the possibility to pay a small income to our co-workers, have the possibility to pay for heat, water, to buy clothes for our children.
So I can boldly state that for 15 years the Light House exists thanks to support from the community. And this is a declaration that Ukraine still lives.
— How are your relations today with the government? Has there been cooperation?
— Two years have passed since we have been on good terms, since the state government has stopped obstructing us. It was difficult to reach these relations, the relations were tense, and it was these relations which provoked the need to hold online conferences at RISU, which was unbelievably significant in the fate of the Light House. The government didn’t want to recognize the existence of these or other problems related to homeless children. We had to firmly stand to the moment when the government finally accepted to tackle these problems.
Now we have the desired cooperative relations, but we had to work for this.
— As a conclusion for our conversation, please describe for us the main goal, the task of the Light House. How do you see it on the threshold of its 15th anniversary?
— The Light House is not just an establishment, is not just a program. In a specific sense it is a spiritual phenomenon, which inspires, returns faith to people in a non-confessional sense, a covert faith, but the most essential for the human heart. That is how we save children, we protect them. And one of the main things we do is change the mentality of the older community, give inspiration for the possibility to live differently, not with economic expediency, not to have a child when they can afford an apartment, but to be oneself, to be oneself with one’s family, with one’s children, despite of anything else.
Today I have this feeling that from the beginning of the 90s we have a different kind of holodomor (famine-genocide): there was a physical holodomor, which killed half of the population, now we have a problem from the holodomor sense, an unsaturated understanding of what we live for. This hunger was the reason for existence. We also have hunger in communication, conversing, in co-participation, hunger in love. And this has begun to destroy, maybe more than the holodomor to which we refer.
The Light House became the bread, which fed people during a spiritual hunger. This phenomenon is not possible to be lost. And this is not separate from my deacon service, something along the lines of what the Protomartyr Stephen did. A deacon, by the way, is not a transitional state between a secular person and a presbyter, a deacon is a separate rank, which dictates the existence of the church from a personal side.
The existence of the church does not become exhausted by the golden cupolas, gonfalons, there comes a time when it is necessary to say that the paupers are the main treasures of the church. If the church will be without this treasure, then it will be a pauper. Deacons should indicate exactly this.
— We sincerely thank you for our discussion.
— And I thank you. Using the upcoming Christmas holidays, and the recently celebrated St. Nicholas Day, I want to wish that the desire to do something good for the children does not emerge only during the holidays. This feeling should be constant. And our future depends on this.
The interview was held by Tetyana Lutsyk, Liliya Kovalyk-Vasiuta, and Taras Antoshevskyy.
L’viv, December 21, 2009
