Estonia to Partner with the Olena Zelenska Foundation to Build New Homes for Orphaned Children in Ukraine

Estonia joins the “Address of Childhood” initiative, in which the Olena Zelenska Foundation builds housing for adoptive or foster families affected by the war in Ukraine.

The Estonian Government will allocate funds for the construction of two homes for families who are raising children who have been orphaned or abandoned due to the war.  Meeting with the First Lady and founder of the foundation, Olena Zelenska, the Estonian high-level delegation expressed Estonia’s commitment to supporting Ukraine in transitioning from large orphanages to community-based family-like alternatives.

“Estonia constantly supports Ukraine and participates in socially important projects, primarily to help children. Building new homes for foster families affected by the war is an opportunity for these families to live in their own homes again,” said Nina Horbachova, Director of the Foundation.

The Foundation is currently negotiating with local authorities and social services to determine in which region of Ukraine the construction of housing will begin, and for which families.

“We thank our friends from Estonia for their partnership and the opportunity to help even more affected Ukrainian children and the foster families,” writes the foundation in their press release.

The Estonian delegation consisted of Minister of Economic Affairs and Information Technology Tiit Riisalo, Director General of the Department for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kairi Saar-Isop, Acting Executive Director of ESTDEV –  Estonian Centre for International Development Andrea Kivi, and Deputy Head of Mission at the Estonian Embassy in Kyiv Margus Gering.

About the Initiative

With the initiative, “Address of Childhood”, the Foundation aims to provide affected families with new housing as quickly as possible. The first 10 family-type small group homes have been built in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates. Negotiations for the construction of several more houses are currently underway with Australia, Slovenia, and Finland.

There are currently an estimated 25,000 orphaned or abandoned children in Ukraine. Before the full-scale war, Ukraine set a course to close “Soviet-type” orphanages and state boarding schools in favour of developing family-type forms of care, such as small group homes, to ensure the right of every orphaned child to be brought up in a family. This is one of the conditions for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.

The Olena Zelenska Foundation has contributed all that it can toward making this path as simple and accessible as possible. To step up its efforts, the Foundation has initiated a project to provide housing for families whose homes were destroyed in the Russian war against Ukraine.

How Estonia Can Help

Estonia stands ready to support Ukraine in developing an inclusive social welfare system, as well as to create a new standard design for a functional and sustainable family home with inspiring and appealing architecture, and construct two of those houses.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of Estonia and the Union of Estonian Architects, ESTDEV launched an Architecture Competition to find a prototype for a family-type small group home, which can be easily adapted to different locations and environments across Ukraine. The house must be built using prefabricated wooden modular solutions to provide space for up to eight children and their foster parents, as well as ensure access and ease of use for family members with special needs.