Dining together, having pets, and planting lots of flowers - these are the dreams the Umansky family had as soon as they saw their new home in Kyiv region.
This is already the 6th family that the team of Olena Zelenska Foundation has helped to settle as part of the "Room for Childhood" project.
Before the full-scale war, the family lived in Kahovka. Ivan and Iryna had their own private house. The husband ran a shoe repair shop, and the wife managed one of the children's centers.
After the occupation of their hometown, the family's life became unbearable. Fleeing from Kherson, the Umansky family took in two more children at their own risk.
The family arrived in the Kyiv region already with seven children and the desire to create a large foster family as soon as possible.
Today their wish has come true, and we are happy to have fulfilled another one - to provide this family with a new comfortable house that will allow them to take in even more children.
Additional info: as part of the "Room for Childhood" project, the Foundation is constructing 14 houses for large foster families in eight regions of the country. This is already the sixth family to receive the keys to a new home. Eight more large families will move into their new homes by the summer of 2024.
All accommodations are inclusive, energy-efficient, furnished, and equipped with household appliances. The total area of each house is 285 square meters.
Concrete shelters (civil defence structure) with metal blast-resistant doors are installed in the yards of the houses. The Foundation oversees the entire construction process: from project documentation to interior decoration.
All houses for the "Room for Childhood" project are transferred to the community's balance. Families have the right to live in them as long as their large foster family exists.
The construction of the Umansky family's house was supported by the government of the United Arab Emirates. The "Room for Childhood" project, together with the Foundation, is also being implemented with the support of the Estonian government (through the Estonian Center for International Development ESTDEV), the Australian fund Minderoo Foundation, the government of Romania (through the Romanian Agency for International Cooperation and Development, RoAid), Global Empowerment Mission, CLT panel manufacturer CLT Rezult, and other partners.