Over the last seven years “The Light House,” an orphanage started by Salesian Fr. Oleksandr Chumakov of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), has functioned in southern Ukrainian Odesa. This news was reported on 6 December 2002.
“The Light House” provides shelter and food for orphaned children, but more importantly, gives them spiritual education. In his interview for “The Evening Odesa” newspaper, Fr. Oleksandr stressed that the orphanage has established good relations with many branches of the state authorities, in particular with the regional department for underage children. “This department tries to satisfy all our requests concerning homeless children that have fallen victim to manipulations of criminal organizations,” said Fr. Oleksandr. “We have also received help from some deputies of the city council, as well as from the municipal department for information and public relations.” According to Fr. Oleksandr, only the municipal department for underage children demonstrates a negative attitude to charity organizations. Mr. Holoskov, head of the department, believes that these organizations don’t do any charity and are illegal, said the priest. Fr. Oleksandr stated that the issue of taking care for homeless children and their social protection once belonged exclusively to the competence of the state and no one could complain about anything. “Since the time our charity organization was founded and we began to help these miserable children, this information has been made public and shortcomings in the work of state bodies responsible for underage children have been revealed,” said Fr. Oleksandr. “Only then did it become clear that the problem is not the children, but the inactivity of government officials who should solve the problems of children, but don’t do this.” According to the police departments that conducted a special investigation last summer, today Odesa is home to approximately 2,000 homeless children, whereas there are only two state orphanages with 100 places each. In addition, two charitable orphanages, “The Light House” and “The Way Home,” currently function in Odesa, giving shelter to 40-60 children each. However, all the city orphanages have enough room only for 350 homeless children.