Finally at bit of good news. The following was posted on the Yahoo Groups board today.

A new director of the SDA (State Dept for Adoption) has been appointed. Her name is Ludmila Volinets Address of the SDA: Desiatinna street nr 14, 01025 Kyiv The vice directors of SDA are : Mr Hritsenko Fedir Volodimirovitch Mrs Duchaeva Ludmila Gnativna (responsible for the Department of Custody and family placement of children)

Although they are not currently open, we are praying that they will open the first week of May and will start giving out appointments immediately. On another positive note, the new director comes with an amazing background and is about the "children" and not herself. This was also posted on the Yahoo Board today.

She has been working for the NGO "Hope and Home for Children", which has been trying to establish family type homes for abandoned children in Ukraine, with the help of British ONG. Mrs Volinets is from Odessa and holds a PhD in Political Sciences and is coming from Odessa. Her PhD research was on the demographical crisis during the transition in Ukraine. She is well known in Ukraine for her project with this ONG, and her efforts to try to build a Center that helps young mothers who are determined to abandon their children in Kherson. As you imagine, maternity wards in Ukraine don't even have a psychologist on the premises, so young mothers are really left alone with this decision and have no help. Also women have their first child much younger than in Western Countries so we are talking about young girls with often unwanted pregnancies. In 2002 Mrs. Volinets coordinated an inquiry about the mothers who abandon their children in the Kherson region. This is the only such inquiry in Ukraine. Thereafter she planned this Center to help them. She is known to be very professional and well informed about child abandonment in Ukraine. She wants to change things and certainly try to prevent children to be abandoned. Don’t forget the new SDA is a State department for adoption but also for the Defense of Children’s Rights and she certainly will work on less children be abandoned in Ukraine. You can find material on her and the ONG on the internet and on Ukrainian media. This is a choice that is in favor of the children and against corruption. Let's welcome the decision of the government to nominate such a person as the head of SDA.