My acquaintance, who is a boarding school graduate, told me a story. His younger sister studied well at school, was seriously engaged in dancing, took lessons of vocal singing and dreamt about entering the University of Culture. And she was promised that her documents would be submitted there. But she wasn`t taken to the examination. Without any explanations. As all little girls she was sent to the Technical College to study plastering. Now she is completely disappointed, she has lost the interest in studying, and she misses classes… Certainly, she might not have entered there, failed examinations, but it is a quite different question.
When I come to boarding schools to do questionnaires for orphans, I always talk with senior pupils. Many of them understand the illusoriness of the hopes and want to be adopted. Some teachers say that recent graduates do not simply come to visit, but they ask to take them back. They don`t feel cozy in “the big world”, but it is impossible to take them back. We don't have tutorial project for graduates, there are few such projects in Ukraine.
These children have only half a year before leaving school.
Vika K., was born in 1994.
Vika knows that she can`t rely on anybody: she has three elder sisters, but they can only care of themselves. The girl has a plan how she could earn her living. It seems quite realistic. I hope, Vika has enough suffice, ingenuity, self-discipline to realize it.
Katya К., was born in 1996.
She lived with her aunt for some time, but couldn’t get on with the cousin. Her aunt lacked desire and wisdom to help the girls, so Katya lives in a boarding school. The girl still feels the insult and bitterness. And she doesn`t know what to do after the graduation and how to organize the life outside the boarding school walls?
Sasha Y., was born in 1994.
His boarding school is in a small city, on the bank of a small river. But their sports instructor is a big enthusiast. He has found who of the children can swim. And then during a short period he managed to collect an excellent team training them on the open water. They have been to the pool once so that children are not scared (there was no money for visiting the swimming pool) and they went to the competitions to Odessa. Their team occupied the prize-winning place, and Sasha got two medals in the individual competitions. The guy in general is a good sportsman: plays football, volleyball, basketball. He is accurate, nice, studies well. He also dreams of becoming a sports instructor at school. Not to become a champion, a sports star, but to teach children, to teach them to love sports and movement. However, he realizes that for him this road is closed …
Lyuba М., was born in 1994.
Lyuba with her classmate
This girl often plays with dogs who live at the boarding school. She loves them, trusts them and appreciates their openness and fidelity. Everything is more difficult with people, that`s why she treats them with watchfulness. She wants to become the veterinary surgeon, to help animals, because it is the only thing she is interested in. But she has never thought what she needs to do to become a veterinary.