VOROKHTA, Ukraine – Emotion overpowered Ruslana Wrzesnewskyj as she approached this picturesque Carpathian Mountain town in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast situated 2,788 feet above sea level. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks that her black-rimmed sunglasses partially concealed just steps away from the Hutsul settlement situated along the Prut River flowing southward.
“We finally did it, we did it,” she said as tears kept dribbling while hugging the nine walkers with whom she entered the town, including Ukrainian-Swiss friend Patricia Shmorhun who “gave me courage to continue.”
Ms. Wrzesnewskyj had endured a broken arm along the way in June, but trekked on.
It was the culmination of a 56-day, 404-mile (650-kilometer) westward hike that started in Kyiv to raise awareness for Ukraine’s orphans, a cause to which the Ukrainian Canadian realtor and activist has devoted a quarter century of her life.
“Please forgive me,” she said during the embrace as she regained her composure, crossed arms again with her fellow walkers and marched onward where 220 orphans of various categories and age groups were waiting to greet her along with Canada’s honorary consul in Lviv, Dr. Oksana Wynnyckyj-Yusypovych, and members of the Canadian Armed Forces, who are in-country to train their Ukrainian counterparts.
Canadian Ukrainian Ruslana Wrzesnewskyj reacts after reaching her destination of Vorokhta in the Carpathian Mountains on August 4. Her walk-a-thon aimed to raise awareness about the plight of orphans in Ukraine as well as funds for their care.
After a series of hurrahs, Ms. Wrzesnewskyj stopped to re-emphasize her call to “close down” the country’s “antiquated” Soviet-era boarding homes and schools where more than 106,000 orphans reside, accounting for 1.5 percent of the underage population.
An organizer of summer and winter camps for orphans, as well as other outreach programs, Ms. Wrzesnewskyj, 64, said that “reform must start soon… there should be programs to keep children with their families as opposed to just dumping them in the orphanages.” She added that Canada’s foster care model would be a good fit for adoption in Ukraine.
She was referring to what the Ukrainian government calls “social orphans,” who account for 95 percent of all children kept in 751 various boarding homes – called “internaty” – and schools that are mostly secluded from society and which are overseen by either the health, social or education ministries.
“Needless to say, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing in many areas,” noted Ms. Wrzesnewskyj, who adopted a daughter in the 1990s in Lviv Oblast.
Only about 6,000 children are actually parentless or those whose guardians were deprived of parental rights due to neglect or substance abuse, like alcohol or drugs.
Canadian Ukrainian Ruslana Wrzesnewskyj (center, dark sunglasses) embraces fellow walk-a-thoners, including Swiss-Ukrainian friend Patricia Shmorhun (left), upon reaching Vorokhta after trekking 404 miles over 56 days to help Ukraine’s orphans.
At this year’s summer camp, of the 220 orphans attending, 38 come from families where a parent died in the Russia-instigated Donbas war, the vast majority of whom are fathers, according to camp director Anka Wrzesnewskyj, who is one of Ms. Wrzesnewskyj’s daughters.
Here they receive new attire and footwear, do traditional camp activities like outdoor exploration, singing and campfires. They also learn skills to prepare for life once they leave orphanages upon reaching adulthood at age 18.
Ruslana Wrzesnewskyj visited nine orphanages during her walk to conduct site visits. Many of these institutions have received material assistance from her Toronto-based charitable organization called Help us Help the Children over the last 25 years. She has a locally registered non-profit group as well to ease technical assistance.
Some boarding homes were in good condition, like the one she saw in Zhytomyr Oblast. Another in the neighboring Khmelnytsky Oblast further east “looked like it was forgotten and was frozen in time from the 1990s,” she said.
So the next day, she and her team brought footwear, toys and other items they had purchased, “because they had nothing,” she said.
Abuse and neglect at the country’s other orphanages have made headlines this summer, capturing the attention of Ukraine’s human rights ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova.
At one shelter in Volyn Oblast in May, a child ran away due to alleged physical abuse, but staff hadn’t notified the authorities. After the ombudswoman’s investigation, it was revealed that 10 orphans had bruises on their bodies and what appeared to be blood stains on their clothes.
Ms. Denisova called for the orphanage director in the town of Rozhyshche to be fired during a briefing on August 3 with journalists, adding that child abuse has been prevalent there for at least five years.
In another incident in Odesa Oblast, local police are investigating alleged child abuse at the Svitanok (Sunrise) orphanage. Police published a video on social media earlier this month showing a 5-year-old girl complaining of mental and physical abuse there.
“Odesa Oblast police officer Zoryana Melnyk, who filmed the video and posted it [on August 5]… said that the girl was covered in bruises, and her hair and clothes [were] dirty,” the Kyiv Post reported.
A 10-year reform program is under way that presidential commissioner for children’s rights Mykola Kuleba is spearheading.
Mark Raczkiewycz
Children from a summer camp for orphans await the arrival of Canadian Ukrainian activist Ruslana Wrzesnewskyj as she completed her walk-a-thon from Kyiv to Vorokhta.
Running through 2026, it aims to reduce the number of children living at state-run boarding homes by 70 percent and eventually establish a foster-care system, while encouraging families to not give away their children.
Its main purpose is that “children should live with their families and government should support children in families and not in boarding home shelters,” he said late in 2017 when he unveiled the program. “We need to re-format family support policy…”
Back in Vorokhta, Ruslana Wrzesnewskyj said on August 7 that she can’t stop walking.
“We walked 21.5 kilometers today. We continue. Time for change. Please donate,” she said on social media. “Add that to the 650-kilometer total. Thank you all that have contributed!”
Asked about how her outreach perspective has changed and her feelings about Ukraine after walking across about 40 percent of the country’s width, Ms. Wrzesnewskyj replied: “Our approach won’t change, but we will demand that more reforms happen in the orphanage system.”
During the walk, she fell in love with Ukraine all over again.
“It’s the spirit of the people, the soul of the villages… Ukraine is just fabulous, I saw it from a different angle.” Referring to the noted pilgrimage route to northwestern Spain, she added, “I recommend that everybody do an El Camino Ukrainian-style.”