On August 27, 2023, an entertaining and educational family picnic was held in Kremenets, Ternopil, Ukraine, for children with disabilities, orphans, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and those living in difficult circumstances. The event, organized by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Dawn of Hope, was attended by Stanislav Nosov, president of the Ukrainian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, and Leonid Rutkovsky, director of ADRA Ukraine.
Rutkovsky said ADRA Ukraine helped finance the construction of a new building for a training-and-rehabilitation center for children and youth with disabilities, as well as war victims. According to the director, the construction of the center, which is a project of Dawn of Hope and has been underway since 2021, will not be left without the charity's attention.
Dawn of Hope, an NGO comprising parents and friends of children with disabilities, was officially registered in 2015. Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, this society, together with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ukraine, has been providing material and psychological assistance to victims of the conflict, including people with disabilities and IDPs. To date, more than 15,000 IDPs have received food and clothing from Dawn of Hope. About 100 Ukrainian families with children with disabilities were evacuated to Poland and placed under the care of the NGO Step by Step.
Zorya Nadii is the founder of the rehabilitation/education center, which has been operating for five years in Kremenets in a small private building. The center employs teachers, psychologists, and rehabilitation specialists who provide assistance to children and youth with disabilities and their families, as well as families who lost their loved ones in the conflict, IDPs, and their children. However, the center needed a much larger building, the construction of which began in 2021 and has not yet been completed due to the conflict and the rise in the cost of materials.
The main contributors to the construction efforts are the European Union, the Poland-Ukraine program, and Step by Step. The new center will be able to help 70–100 people at a time. It is planned to place a kindergarten and school on its territory, where rehabilitation and socialization of children with disabilities will take place. The center also plans to provide assistance to soldiers and all those who suffered from the consequences of the conflict. That is why the center is in urgent need of specialists, employees, and patrons to help complete the construction.
The original version of this story was posted on the Ukrainian Union Conference Ukrainian-language news site.