CrossRoads Foundation

Our Mission

It is staggering to imagine that according to the most recent estimates in Ukraine, there are about 200,000 homeless children and children without parental care, spending most of their time on the streets. Police raids have officially detected 50,500 street children during 2004 alone. About 20% of all Ukrainian street children live or move to Kiev, the nation’s capital. There is NO national or regional qualitative welfare system to protect children-in-crisis. Governmental shelters provide a simple temporary stay for street children and do virtually nothing to qualitatively rehabilitate them and re-unite them with their families. In practice, this problem is left with no solution and some private charities, with NO governmental funding, try to change the situation in different ways.

Street and otherwise disadvantaged children need immediate help. We see many good-intentioned people giving street children food and money on the streets with no vision for rehabilitation, which teaches them to grow up as beggars and homeless adults. We are passionate about removing these “band-aid” types of help and getting to the underlying issues of professional rehabilitation. Jesus promises that He will not leave us as orphans (John 14:18), and God is called a Father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). Our Christian staff are fleshing out the gospel of Christ and tangibly showing the love of God by pouring their lives into the lives of these desperately needy children in every aspect of their work.

Having completed a holistic assessment of the situation and studied practical experience of street children intervention in other countries, we have created a model protecting the rights of at-risk children specific to the realities of today’s situation in Kiev. We hope to reach the financial level enabling us to expand to other needy areas of Ukraine. Our main goal is to remove children from the streets, and with God’s love and care, to rehabilitate and reintegrate them back into biological or professionally trained (foster) families and help older children lead independent, socially acceptable lives. Prayer undergirds each branch of our model, which includes:

1. Day Center for Street Children

This Center assists street children in urgent need of food, clothing, medical attention, shower & social/moral support. Up to 20 children are entertained in the Center on any given day until about 7 P.M. Children come themselves having learned about the Center through other children, being invited during our street outreach work, being referred by other organizations or police.

During the Day Center’s daily in-take sessions, children are assisted by psychologists, care givers, medical nurse and legal advisor. The main goal of the Center’s intervention is to stimulate street children to change their lives (some of them have lived on streets for more than 5 years!), undergo necessary medical exams and treatment and take the next step of entering our full-time Rehabilitation Center. During their stay in the Day Center children draw, make crafts, sing and express their individuality in other ways, as well as watch Christian cartoons, talk about moral education and study the Bible.

2006 RESULTS of the Day Center:

495 children passed through the Center;
34 children returned to their biological families after intensive work with our psychologist;
23 children were placed in our Medical Center for treatment;
16 children were placed to live in our Rehab Center.

NEEDS of the Day Center:

Funds to purchase food and other necessities for children (approx. $5 child/day);
Funds to accommodate more children around the clock in the Day Center.

2. Medical Center for Street Children

Virtually ALL street children coming to our Day Center suffer from skin diseases, sexually transmitted diseases and other health problems. Realistically, NO other hospital in Kiev will accept a street child for any treatment. As children MUST be cured from all contagious diseases in order to move from our Day Center to Rehabilitation Center, the Medical Center is an invaluable site in our model. Additionally, we are able to admit & care for any other at-risk children in the city who are referred to us. Importantly, the Medical Center provides not only medical care, but psychological and legal support as well.

2006 RESULTS of the Medical Center:

Opened in March 2006;
210 street children were admitted and examined for various skin diseases and STDs;
210 received social help and counseling with regard to their future;
110 received the “full course” of medical treatment for their illnesses.

NEEDS of the Medical Center:

After renovation is completed, beds & equipment need to be purchased. The Center’s intake capacity will grow from 25 (currently) to 50 children;
Funds to purchase food and medical supplies (approx. $7 child/day).

3. Rehabilitation Center for Street Children

The main goal of this Center is to prepare street children to live again with biological or professionally trained (foster) families and prepare older children for independent living. Today, the Rehab Center houses 24 street children, aged 3 to18 years old, most of whom have been transferred from the Day Center and have undergone the Medical Center’s treatment from contagious diseases. In order to live in the Rehab Center, children must express a desire to change their lives and agree with the rules of the Center. They live with Christian care givers around the clock and receive a full cycle of rehabilitative services which include: in-depth psychological rehabilitation, social workers’ supervision, legal assistance, and medical care. Children also undergo individual education courses, participate in singing lessons, attend Bible Study and church, practice sports, make crafts, draw and express their individuality in other ways.

Psychologists and care givers daily monitor the progress of each street child. Children receive 3 daily meals & snacks, enjoy their own warm beds & clean bathrooms. For older children, we do whatever training and assistance possible to identify job opportunities, including the attendance of technical schools.

Finally, in collaboration with the Center of Family Care, our Christian psychologists reach out to biological families of children (if available) endeavoring to reunite the family as soon as possible. Alternatively, professionally trained parents are sought to place the rehabilitated child with a foster family or family type home.

2006 RESULTS of the Rehabilitation Center:

154 children applied for help;
72 children/youth lived in the Rehab Center at their own request;
30 returned home after completing the center’s “full course” of rehabilitation;
7 were placed in government institutions, such as orphanage schools;
8 were placed in our Independent Living Center for Boys;
5 were placed in foster families;
22 were living in the Rehab Center at the end of the year.

NEEDS of the Rehabilitation Center:

Funds to house and serve children (approx. $150 child/month);
Funds for on-going renovation/repairs and furniture.
Current example: we need five new bunk beds ($170 per bunk bed).

4. Center of Family Care

The amount of crisis/dysfunctional families has been growing catastrophically in Ukraine in the recent years. According to official statistics, as of January 1, 2005, Ukrainian authorities registered 52,000 crisis families (Institute of Family and Youth estimates 86,000 of such families), where there is no proper care for over 104,000 children. Realistically, there are many more. Every year Ukraine sees the escalation in the number of parents who lose their parental rights due to severe neglect towards their children. In 2004 alone, 8,700 parents were stripped of their parental rights nationwide. About 7,000 children are removed from crisis families annually.

One of the most effective works in assisting children is the prevention of children “falling out” of their families by proactively reaching out to help crisis families with children, who are in conflict with their parents and either spend most of their time on the streets or are on the verge of doing so.

This Center identifies professionally trained families ready to accept children who have been prepared in our Rehabilitation Center. We also plan to work more actively to promote national adoption.

RESULTS of the Center of Family Care:

10 children currently live in families trained by our psychologists;
All of the biological parents, whose children returned to them after our Rehabilitation Center course, were prepared by our psychologists and social workers to resume the relationships with their children.

NEEDS of the Center of Family Care:

We need monthly support for families for at-risk children and families;
Funds for professional training of prospective foster parents and social supervision;
Funds for social support of foster families with children who have graduated from our Rehab Center ($100/month per child).

5. Independent Living Center for Rehabilitated Street Children

One of the major problems of orphans and children who have graduated from our Rehabilitation Center is future housing realities and continued social supervision and support. This issue is also extremely acute for Ukrainian orphanage graduates, the majority of whom not only have no place to live but are totally unprepared for independent living outside the orphanage gates.

The Independent Living Center provides social housing for youth, who have graduated from our Rehab Center. Six to nine youth over 16 years old live independently under the social supervision of a professional social worker. Our main goal is to equip youth to adapt to and overcome daily life challenges, provide them with advanced life skills, job skills, continued legal support, and assistance with job search.

RESULTS of the Independent Living Center:

Opened in June 2006;
Six teenage boys, who graduated from our Rehab Center, currently live here. Five of them work and one of them began his university studies.
They all maintain a budget, participate in cleaning their home & doing chores, cook, and learn how to live in community through weekly home-group meetings with Christian social workers.

NEEDS of the Independent Living Center:

Funds to maintain the Center ($100 per youth per month).

6. Humanitarian Aid Center

Our Humanitarian Aid Center is a “support center” for the other centers in our model. Out of this center we provide food, clothing, and daily supplies for at-risk children, biological and foster families with whom we work.

The following are part of our model in the developmental stage. We need funds to launch them and ensure that they function properly.

7. Emergency Center (Project of 2007)

Children experiencing abuse and suffering at home or elsewhere have difficulty in receiving professional emergency help. At the moment Ukraine has no experience or service of emergency type help for a child in crisis. Furthermore, the police, if called, are neither trusted nor trained to provide specific assistance to children in crisis.

This Center will operate a telephone hotline for children in crisis situations. In collaboration with local government and police, we plan to protect the rights of "at-risk" children by offering emergency psychological help over the phone and creating a mobile emergency group that would respond quickly to dangerous, life-threatening, and abusive situations by reaching out to the child at his/her location.

8. Home of Salvation Children’s Village (Project of 2007)

The Government of Ukraine allows a unique model to care for social orphans in a family setting titled “Family Type Home” (FTH). Professionally trained parents can take up to 10 children (including their biological ones) into joint upbringing.

We envision the creation of 10 homes each housing 10 social or biological orphans, who have completed our Rehabilitation Center course. We are currently in the process of obtaining land from the government to erect these 10 homes.

There is a special need to create the first FTH in Ukraine for HIV-positive street children. We realize how challenging this project will be and are prepared to become pioneers in this area of work.

Estimated budget to create the Home of Salvation Children's Village Project is $80,000 per house. Please contact us for details.

Thank you for your interest. We believe our current activities are only a beginning. As many more children reach out to us, we are looking for ways to qualitatively help them. We need your help in doing that. On behalf of children in crisis situations, we are reaching out for all the help you would consider for us. We are looking for partners in order to transform the lives of at-risk children.

“If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the foundations of many generations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings” (Isaiah 58:10-12).

We invite you to join us in repairing the broken walls of street children’s lives and restoring their paths to life!

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