Purpose: 88,000 children abandoned to state care
The story of Ukraine’s forgotten children was published in the Daily Mail 5 years ago describing the conditions of neglect in state institutions.
‘A grim hangover from the communist era, it is done in the belief that the state will do a better job of raising a disabled child.
The truth, as I found when I spent six months in Ukraine filming a documentary after hearing reports of severe neglect, is very different.’
These reports included the death of social activist Terry Hallman whose body was discovered by a Maidan leader and reported back to me. It included a letter to USAID and the Senate in 2008, describing these same conditions.
‘Whether by intent or default, rural PN [psychoneurological — ed.] facilities have become money farms and money laundries having almost nothing to do with child care. Kids are thrown in at age 4, often with barbaric and draconian misdiagnoses, and essentially left to die from neglect. They are not there for medical help. They are there to justify government budget expenditures out into the middle of nowhere in places most people haven’t reason to know about and thus no reason to ask or care about. When folks do know about it, they almost without exception do not dare to speak openly about it. These facilities have been extremely difficult to research. University professors, social protection officers, pediatricians, judges, lawyers, doctors and ordinary citizens who have some knowledge of PNs all understand full well that PNs are hands-off and people do NOT ask questions about them..
In his 2006 series on Death Camps, For Children Terry had exposed the reality of state childcare in Ukraine, going further to sketch out a strategy for intervention. This was published online in 2007 as A ‘Marshall Plan’ strategy for Ukraine, where he wrote:
“There is no substitute for a loving family environment for growing children. Existing state care institutions do not and cannot possibly provide this — despite occasional, lingering claims that state care is the best care for children. This attitude is a holdover from Soviet times when the state was idealized as the best possible caretaker for all, including children. Stark reality does not support that notion.”
His letter to USAID which called on their support was copied to the Senate Commitee on Foreign Relations where Joe Biden and Barack Obama were then members.
“Hallman is currently investigating the setup of a multi-million dollar fund offering split financial ROI if needed, that is, a portion to investor(s) and the remainder to P-CED.
The funds will be directed to concluding a project in the Ukraine which involves funding the training of residents to develop social businesses. Included in this work is supporting children who have disabilities, many of whom have been left to die in secretive locations. P-CED is helping to move these children to safety and give them access to modern healthcare.”
What he was doing is know today as purpose driven business and the Marshall Plan described what is now called impact investment. A strategy to address a social problem which results in financial benefits. In this case to the state.
York St John University gave me the opportunity to blog about the approach, which called on forward thinking businesses to invest in a social benefit fund.
“In this case, for the project now being proposed, it is constructed precisely along these lines. Childcare reform as outlined above will pay for itself in reduced costs to the state. It will need investment for about five years in order to cover the cost of running two programs in parallel: the existing, extremely problematic state childcare scheme, and the new program needed to replace it for the purpose of giving children a decent life. The old program will be phased out as the new program is phased in. After this phase transition is complete, the state will from that time forward pay out less money for state childcare. Children will have a better life, and will be more likely to become healthy, productive assets to the nation rather than liabilities with diminished human development, diminished education, and the message that they are not important — the basis for serious trouble. There is no need whatsoever to give these children less than a good quality of life as they grow and mature. The only problem is reorganization of existing resources.”
20 years ago, he’d begun with a question about the purpose of business.
Re-imagining capitalism, the New Bottom Line is the story of how it developed
