Re-vamped trade school

This year the plan is the trade school will be back, although in a scaled down version. We had no students last year, other than two guys who continued with year two of the program in the fall and lived at our house.. . as you can see if you look back in this blog... Our school started with a man with a dream about a trade school for orphans, John Wiens.

We had a small group of students start in September 2012, most of them received the certificate the Ukrainian government authorized us to confer on them - for being a cattle grazing technician. The only male student that did not get his was the only one who worked on the farm in 2013. The others have gone on to other trade schools or university for training in other subjects. One student was baptized by John Wiens the Sunday before he  left for Canada, and others had experiences that changed their lives spiritually.

For 2013, due to lack of funds, it was decided not to have students in the fall and most of the staff was laid off. John Wiens went on home assignment and fund raised successfully in Canada and even the US, until he was diagnosed with cancer in December. He had hoped to start up with new students in January when he planned to return to Ukraine, but we were not ready yet. John really hoped to start a second track for students to study, he really wanted a baking track for girls. Sadly, John passed away in January.

However, a team from BC got the ball rolling on the unfinished barn renovation and came this spring to work for ten days and got so much done on this important piece of the project. The renovation of one of the old collective barns in the village was the linchpin of the project, and the reason Garry got involved when John talked about his dream of the trade school for orphans (to set up and manage the farm for the school). The barn would not only serve as the training area for the students learning to be farm managers but be a way to fund the ongoing operation of the school. We have been able to continue work on the barn and plan to have some animals in it soon, with cows milking there in the fall and students back in the two houses with foster families to help them learn about living in a family environment instead of an institutional one.

We have some strategies to make it work better this year. including trying to select students who really want to study farming! All students will be in the 18-22 year age range, no minors. We will have fewer teachers to reduce expenses, and forget about government certification since the one we could give is not really what we are teaching. Garry will continue to teach the farm component, and we plan to have some classes taught by the foster parents.

We will not try to give the students everything they would get at a government school- clothes, food, spending money for whatever they want. Education will be free,  but the orphans will have room and board deducted from the money they make for working in the barn during the work study component of their education. They will make more than the amount needed, so they will have some spending cash for themselves, but it will be earned, to help prepare them for the real world.

So right now we are looking for students for the fall, orphans of course. We may have few day students from the village, after filling our houses with orphans, these students would live at home and work to pay for their training during the work study.