Since summer 2011, the "Happy Child" foundation has been actively working on creating the first "Happy Child" children's eco-village in the Zaporizhzhia region. The concept is to build a few family-style children's homes in an ecologically clean region, creating a community of adoptive parents. About 30 orphans, including children with special needs, will be able to live in families in the children's village. Our project has some similarities to a Russian "Kitezh Children's Community" project, but Happy Child has its own unique features as well.
In the autumn of 2011, we acquired a 1.7 acre lot at the outskirts of the Ukrainka village of the Mikhailovsk district in the Zaporizhzhia region. This year, we continued working on the project and acquired two more lots (0.75 and 1.25 acres). We soon plan to join those lots into one for building the first part of our village. We intend to build three houses for the adoptive families and a communal house for meetings, children's clubs, seminars for adoptive parents, and educational and cultural programs. During summertime, we'll also have camping in tents for children and educational seminars on the topic of ecology.
In the summer of 2012, we already organized two tent camps for children on the site of the future children's village. Sparsely populated (only 60 residents) village of Ukrainka grew livelier with happy children's voices and songs around a campfire. Local residents, most of whom are elderly, remembered the days when the village was just starting, and we, the organizers, were able to see how much this place would be transformed when children live here. We were also able to ensure that children would be comfortable and safe in this location. Although the village is too small to have its own school, there is a local bus to a nearby school that runs daily. Last year, the village got gas laid on, and pure water from the artesian well is supplied without any interruptions.
The village's ambience is very serene; there are no major roads nearby, so one can come to the village to enjoy peace and harmony. The meadow and brook in the center of the village create a feeling of living in the wild rather than in a town. Here, one can quickly forget the busy life of the city and think about the eternal and the spiritual.
There are two picturesque ponds three miles away from Ukrainka, but in the future, we plan constructing small ponds in the village itself.
The landscaping organization, which specializes in ponds, confirmed that it would be possible to construct a water reservoir in Ukrainka. You can read about the children's village project in more detail here.
In the summer of 2012, a volunteer architect created a preliminary blueprint for the children's village, using our sketch as a guide. The project includes three houses for families, communal territory and a communal house, and space for having tent camps.
The preliminary blueprint of children's village
That's how the village would look from the "inside"
In the very near future, we shall be working out the details of the blueprints of the houses and pipelines in the village, and establishing the detailed budget for the entire project. We intend to build energy-efficient houses and we are also determining which kind of plumbing and run-off filtration would work best.
If you are interested in this project, you can help us in these ways:
-become a member of the group working on this project
-you can foster orphaned children, including children with special needs, and become a resident of this village;
-help us financially: we need to pay for blueprint documents, for drawing up documents for the lots, and for the construction work
-donate construction materials or labor
-help as a volunteer to clear the ground, clear away the construction trash, and to cut down old trees
-donate saplings of fruit, decorative trees, or grape vines
-help spread the word about the project (reposting this article or posting links to the project on websites and social networks)
-help with fundraising
You may also subscribe to our Google e-newsletter for contact with the initiative group on creating the village, or click on ВКонтактe group (This is a social networking site in Russian.)
We are convinced that if we work together, we can successfully carry out this ambitious project!
Our staff members will be glad to answer any questions you have about the project. Phone number +38 (066) 513 34 35, E-mail: info@deti.zp.ua.
Photo gallery from the site of the future eco-village:
