I have seen this woman before, thought I to myself. The mother of a family with ten children stuck in my memory because she looked as if she were their oldest sister-not tall and slim as Thumbelina, this woman was not aged by labor.
“God permitting, I would have even 15 children, but I cannot for health reasons,” she said.
Nadia Melnyk from the village of Horaimivka in Manevychi raion received patrons: Donetsk businessmen pledged to help her in the framework of the president-initiated campaign “Warm Children with Love!” Yaroslav and Nadia Melnyk live in a house half of which belongs to one of their relatives. A few years ago she wrote to the president about their living conditions. No real help came, so the Melnyks laid the foundation for an extension that would include a veranda and a kitchen. However, even this small-scale reconstruction was stalled: because of his poor health Yaroslav had not been able to go to Moscow to earn some cash. (He even received a paper from the regional hospital confirming that he had gastritis and osteochondrosis.) The family lives on what they produce themselves, social payments, and earnings from acorns and berries that they collect and sell.
Mykola Hubatenko, assistant to MP Mykola Yankovsky, was a godsend for many families with many children.
“Hubatenko asked one of our families, ‘How can we help you?’ The father takes to the bottle, the house is falling apart, the rotten floor is all holes, etc. Catastrophe! But the mother demands, ‘Give us a computer!’ Then he went to the neighboring village of Pohulianka and spoke to the family with 11 or 12 children one of which was crippled. The same question. The father asked for one more horse and a cart to be able to manage a bigger farmstead. ‘Oh, said Hubatenko, we’ll give you a horse, and a cart, and a computer!’ recalls Anatolii Snitko, head of the Horaimivka village council.
On top of everything else the Melnyks received a modern 6,000-hryvnia Czech boiler that needs to be refilled only twice a day. They were also given construction materials for building a new house. Concern Stirol gave them a complete design for their house (it cost money too), a fridge, and a washing machine. All of this was agreed upon by the Melnyks. However, after they had laid the foundation for the future house on their own, they began to ask for help again. And so I saw Nadia Melnyk in a TV program showing her at an appointment with the Volyn governor.
Here I am again-the same house, only with more construction materials around. Parents are not at home. Tania, the oldest one of their children and an 11th-grader, is skipping school because she is looking after four-year-old Sasha. One of their sisters is staying home too to keep them company — last night Sasha got himself badly burned.
“Mom called father: what do we do? He is in Dnipropetrovsk oblast helping his brother to take down their old house. Father told her where he had put Novocaine, mother poured it over the burn, and Sasha calmed down. The next morning she went to Manevychi for an interview with the welfare commission. She called and said that she had already bought sea buckthorn seed oil and will treat Sasha with it. She is coming soon!” says Tania, looking at the clock.
As the oldest child, she knows all the problems of the family. The guaranteed sum of money their family receives per month is a mere 100 hryvnias — for Sasha’s nourishment. Another 1,500 hryvnias came in the form of welfare. It is appointed on a biannual basis, which means a denial is possible.
“Mariana and I need jackets because the one Yushchenko gave on St. Nicholas Day (Tania says it in such a way as if President Yushchenko is their father.-Author) is already too small. Mykola’s boots will be used by Pavlo. Vera can still use her old ones. Last year mom and I had one pair to share. We borrowed 500 hryvnias from an old lady and bought a jacket and boots for our little one. We owe $200 to some man and another 1,000 hryvnias to some woman. What did we borrow for? Dad bought more stone or cement.”
Tania says their mother went to Lutsk to ask [authorities] to build a house for them.
“Mom was in [the village of] Bashlyky. They didn’t only give them construction materials-they are building a house for them. Mom said the rooms are so large and the roof is being tiled. I don’t know why they aren’t building for us. We’ve been doing everything ourselves!” says Tania. “One man from our village helped dig. My father had helped him build a barn.”
Not far from the house, on a countryside road, we saw the mother of the family. She was on her way back from Manevychi with medications and hopes.
“What are you going to do next?” I asked.
“I will go to the president! I want them to build a house for us because we cannot do it ourselves. We don’t need all of these construction materials now,” she said with a slighttrace of anger, it seemed. “I sent the president a letter to an address that few people know; someone gave it to me.”
“Do you believe that you will receive a positive answer?”
The woman is a little confused but tries to convince me:
“I must have faith [that it will be positive]. How can you go on without faith?”
It is a noble thing to warm children with love and force big business share a tiny portion of its capital. However, from its inception this initiative raise quite a few doubts. On the one hand, limiting the target category to people “in need” was the right thing to do because it is impossible to help everyone. On the other hand, having many children does not always mean poverty.
In Volyn oblast the program “Warm Children with Love” has covered primarily families that profess Protestantism and call themselves viruiuchi (believers). (This designation has always been against the grain with me because it suggests that all other people are unbelievers.) There was, however, one Roma family that had milked two MPs, representatives of a charity fund, to its heart’s delight. After many years of working as a journalist in various parts of Volyn oblast, I can assure you: if a family has many children and belongs to “believers,” it more often than not lives in such a mansion (there are entire streets of mansions) that not every nouveau riche can afford.
However, there are indeed those who have a hard time making ends meet — and it does not take 10 children. I know a man who has been taking care of his five sons since his wife died. Our newspaper wrote also about a widow who after the death of her husband lived with five children in her grandparents’ house in a remote hamlet. So businessmen still have people to share their wealth with.
The charity program “Warm Children with Love!” completed a certain stage. Perhaps, businesspeople will start helping families with nine or more children under age, then families with eight children, and so on.
