Introduction

In 2010 our foundation was established to support young adult orphans and handicap children. We are situated in the western part of Ukraine in a town called Vynohradiv, Transcarpathia. Our aim is to give hope and care to the young adults and children who use our facilities and give them the best possible opportunity to develop themselves. We would also like to teach them to love and care about nature and the environment. In the last 14 years we have been co-ordinators for World Servants a Dutch Christian organisation working in different parts of Transcarpathia. We took part in renovations of kindergartens, schools, orphanages and therapy centres. One of the orphanages we became closely associated with through working with World Servants was the Perechrestye Orphanage. We became aware of the difficulties for young adults in the Orphanage. Most of the youngsters face serious problems when leaving the Orphanage, a lot of them have nowhere to live, a job to go to, have no idea how to run a household or how to deal with money as this is not taught them in the orphanage. We would like to give jobs to some of these young adults and help them to find their place in the world. My husband also worked, for eight years in a handicapped children’s home in Vynohradiv called St Theresa. Because of this we got to know the children and families and saw the problems they faced. We were really touched with the lives of these children! The way they are fighting their disability every day and the way their parents are handling their problems. The desire of these children to be similar to other healthy children and to live a better life gave us the inspiration to help them. My dream is to make a place where young adult orphans can work with handicap children. This way orphans can learn that there are people with more serious problems than themselves and that they can also help others! A part of this dream is already realised, however there is still much work to do and there are many challenges and tasks ahead, we realise that we are too small to continue alone and we need your help to take our next steps! Margitics Ildikó Stand by Us Foundation On this photo a social orphan boy is pushing the wheelchair of the handicap girl.