November 11, 2008, Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation Kateryna Yushchenko visited Kyiv Batiuk Secondary Specialized Boarding School No.5 for Blind Children. Also present were Chief Ophthalmologist with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine Serhiy Rykov, leaders of the Provincial Rhineland Alliance, headed by Director Harry K. Voigtsberger, and Ukraine 3000 Foundation members.
The visit to the boarding school was aimed at studying the institution’s problems and seeking ways for cooperation and support.
The guests visited the library, psychological relief rooms, school workshops, dining halls, dormitories, grade school classrooms, computer classes, and typhlo rooms. They also talked to the pupils, management, and faculty members of the boarding school.
Mrs. Yushchenko emphasized the boarding schools activities and its leaders’ efforts to improve living conditions for the children, the quality of education, and vocational training. “For our Foundation, the integration of people with limited abilities into the society is extremely important,” Mrs. Kateryna said. “We know that lots of work is still to be done in this area and many questions to be addressed. First of all, we want to give these children more choices regarding their future professions. It is also important that we work with our society to change the attitude toward people with special needs.”
These children’s biggest problem is their inability to find job after their graduation, since almost all training and production centers, created back in the Soviet times, have seized working, while ordinary higher educational institutions aren’t adapted to teach such students.
On behalf of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation, Mrs. Yushchenko gave the Secondary Specialized Boarding School No.5 a collection of fairy tales and music on audio CDs for its library.
Kyiv Batiuk Secondary Specialized Boarding School No.5 for Blind Children trains and provides for harmonious development, adaptation, and rehabilitation for children with impaired sight. The school admits children aged over 6-7 years, living in Kyiv and adjacent oblasts, with visual acuity 0–0,04. The complete course of education at the school is 12 years. Its pupils are trained as massotherapists or typesetting operators. A musical school is operating at the institution.
The Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation pays special attention to people with impaired hearing. This year the Foundation supported photo artist Yuri Batiuk’s project, Touch and See. Also, the Foundation’s representatives, headed by Mrs. Yushchenko, visited the Federal Blind People’s Education Institute in Vienna.
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