Hello, Dear Sponsor,
My name is Mykyta. I am almost 4 years old, and I live in a small village.
My father does not work. He smokes, drinks, and often argues with us. When he comes home drunk and hurts mom, my sister Anna cleverly scares him by saying the police are coming, and that is how she protects us. My mother is on maternity leave, caring for the baby.
I don’t have many friends yet, but I play with my sister Karolina. We draw, play with clay, and build in the sand. At Christmas, we go to the House of Prayer to sing carols and recite poems. In summer, I love swimming in the pond and picking berries and mushrooms in the forest.
I don’t go to school yet, but I spend my days playing with my sisters, making paper boats, and floating them in water. My favorite food is semolina porridge with raspberries, though we usually eat borscht and porridge. Sausages are a rare treat when mom has money.
I don’t know yet what I want to be when I grow up, but I think making ice cream would be fun.
Dear Sponsor, thank you for your kindness and help to my family. May God bless you with health and peace.
With love,
Mykyta
Caseworker Comments:
Mykyta is a quiet and gentle three‑year‑old boy. Reserved by nature, he finds joy in simple play, rolling toy cars across the floor or kicking a ball. Yet even at such a tender age, Mykyta already senses the tension that surrounds him. When his parents argue, he withdraws in fear, retreating into silence instead of laughter.
The family’s circumstances are critically difficult. Mykyta’s father is unemployed and struggles with alcoholism, often disappearing on long drinking binges. Any money he earns from odd jobs for neighbors is quickly spent on alcohol and cigarettes. When drunk, he becomes aggressive, shouting at the children and their mother, starting fights, and destroying household items. In one desperate act, he even dug out the metal posts from around the yard and sold them for scrap, spending all the money on alcohol and tobacco.
The children live in constant fear of their father. When he comes home intoxicated, they cry and hide with their mother until he falls asleep. By morning, he remembers nothing. At times, their mother threatens to call the police simply to protect her children from his violence.
The mother carries the full weight of caring for nine children alone. She cooks, washes them in basins because there is no bathroom, heats the home with a wood stove, and prepares firewood, exhausting tasks that drain her strength. Their house is unfit for normal living: there is no running water, gas, toilet, or bathroom. Legally, the home belongs to the father’s mother, who refuses to register it to the family out of fear her son might sell or destroy it. Winters are especially harsh, with the children suffering from the cold while their mother struggles to keep the house warm.
With no stable income, the family’s living conditions are extremely deplorable. The situation requires constant supervision by a social worker and psychological assistance for both parents. The children desperately need safety, stability, and access to basic necessities such as food, clothing, and hygiene supplies. Their mother, physically and emotionally drained, cannot provide proper living conditions without outside support.
Given these critical circumstances, the father’s alcoholism, his violent and unpredictable behavior, the lack of basic living conditions, and the family’s poverty — Mykyta urgently needs to be included in HART’s Child Sponsorship Program. Sponsorship would help provide Mykyta with a safe and stable environment, nurture his physical and emotional development, and ease the crushing burden carried by his mother.
Local residents occasionally donate clothing, bedding, and curtains, delivered by me (Mariia), who I will serve as the caseworker for this family. But these small acts of kindness are not enough. Mykyta needs consistent, reliable support and your sponsorship can change the course of his life.
