Opening Doors Campaign coordinator in Ukraine – Hope and Homes for Children – hosted an event to raise awareness on the problem of institutional care. In Ukraine approximately 80,000 children are locked up in institutions; rarely are they given the possibility to live within a family.

NGOs, musicians, artists, filmmakers, journalists, and representatives of foreign embassies and missions, gathered on the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (20th November 2014) to attend the presentation of the ‘Opening Doors for Children’ campaign in Kiev, Ukraine.

The event took place in the centre of contemporary art M17, where eight famous Ukrainian artists – Alexander Glyadyelov, Yuri Kruchak, Alexander Kurmaz, Alina Pivnenko, Catherine Buchatska, Anton Logov and Alexandra Zhumaylova – presented their own vision of ending institutional care for children through photos and installations.
“We believe that the upbringing of children in orphanages is a violation of their rights. It causes irreparable harm to children’s development, deprives simple pleasures of childhood, reduces the chances of integration into society and has negative long-term consequences for society”, stated Halyna Postolyuk, Country Director of Hope and Homes for Children Ukraine, and the Opening Doors Campaign’s National Coordinator in the country.

Anatoliy Zabolotny, Director of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, said: “In postwar years the number of orphans is growing. It is necessary to prevent the possibility of restoring a Soviet-based system that is unproductive and unfriendly to children”.

A short film on the Opening Doors campaign was also presented at the exhibition. The campaign was launched in Ukraine and in other 11 European countries in 2013. It aims to consolidate the efforts of civil society to implement systemic changes in social policy for the transition from institutional to family-based care.