I met Maya in the summer of 2011.
She was looking for an orphanage in Ukraine that needed help the most. And we were looking for people who could pull the institution in the village of Kalynivka, Zaporizhzhia region out of the terrible situation it was in (the conditions were awful, there was not enough staff, and up to 15 children died there each year).
Maya was an ordinary young American woman who wanted to do something good for Ukraine and... for the Philippines. Why these countries? Because Maya’s father was Ukrainian (born in Germany during the war and moved to the United States as a child), and her mother was Filipino. Simple as that.
To be honest, many volunteers visited us in those days. So this visit did not seem extraordinary. Maya was an ordinary American woman, not a saint or some idealized person: she could easily use strong words when needed, and she could say things not everyone liked. She left, and I was not sure there would be any continuation of our cooperation. But I was wrong.
Kalynivka deeply touched Maya, and she found the keys to the hearts of Americans and people from other countries. They began helping the boarding institution in Kalynivka more and more. We managed to find additional caregivers and pay their salaries for years. We purchased expensive special nutrition for the most severely ill children — they lost less weight and began to feel better. Mortality in the institution decreased several times over.
After Maya’s publications, some children with severe developmental disabilities were adopted by American families. Before that, in 40 years, not a single Ukrainian family had adopted a child from there. We saw then, and still see now, how these children received surgeries, regularly updated prosthetics, grew into adults, and now live fairly full lives.
For several years now, Maya has organized an annual charity ball in New York, where donors and well-known people gather together with children, including children from Kalynivka. I saw Oleksii (now Logan) and Serhii wearing tuxedos at that ball, and I remember these boys as little children back in 2007, in a forgotten boarding institution — without toys, without bed linen, without any chance for a normal life...
Unfortunately, not everyone was as fortunate as these boys. Many residents of Kalynivka are no longer alive, some remain under occupation, and some are in adult care institutions under the threat of shelling.
During these 15 years, the Maya's Hope organization, through the "Happy Child" charitable foundation, has helped thousands of children from Zaporizhzhia and across Ukraine with support totaling more than $1.34 million.
I am grateful to Maya for everything she has been doing for so many years.
But it deeply saddens me that the people of Ukraine, just like the people of the former Soviet Union before them, still cannot devote as much attention and resources to their own children and people with disabilities as people living across the ocean do. Although I may be unfair — once the authorities did pay attention to helping Kalynivka, when the labor department tried to fine our foundation 250,000 UAH because of an error in hiring additional caregivers.
