BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
23/12/2008
Read the latest report from reporter Katie Norman who is accompanying Operation Christmas Child in Belarus
by Katie Norman, South Wales Echo
As part of her journey to Belarus with Operation Christmas Child, KATIE NORMAN met a family affected by HIV and visited a children's home to find out how gifts from South Wales are making a difference
ON Christmas morning, 31-year-old Kostia Stukach will be smiling broadly while his two daughters open their presents.
His joy is common to parents throughout the world, but for reformed drug addict Kostia, the festive celebrations are especially poignant.
Being HIV positive, he knows how lucky he is to have a family.
And thanks to generous children from Cardiff's Cantonian High School, Kostia and his wife Natasha, 29, can share a present-filled Christmas to remember with their children Sofia, one, and Elizabeth, four.
The Cardiff school children were among thousands of people from South Wales who took part in the Operation Christmas Child programme to send presents to needy children across the world.
Thanking the teenagers from Cantonian, Kostia said: "My daughters will be very happy when they open these gifts. It will be a very special Christmas."
Chemical plant employee Kostia and Natasha, a drugs support worker, received gifts to pass on to their children at a rehabilitation centre near their home in Svetlogorsk, Belarus.
The town has a specific problem with drug addiction and an abnormally high number of residents are HIV positive.
The community of Svetlogorsk has battled the problem since it was inhabited by criminals and drug addicts wanting to escape their past when the town was newly built 50 years ago.
Like many people in Belarus - as well as in Wales and all over the world - Kostia fell into a vicious cycle of addiction after trying heroin as a curious teenager.
He discovered he was HIV positive at the age of 19 but continued taking drugs for three years.
By then, his parents were distraught and fearful. They heard about a clinic in St Petersburg where addicts could undergo brain surgery to allegedly cure their dependency.
Kostia's family paid $4,000 to send him to the clinic - only to later discover it had been a scam.
"The only result from the operation was negative," said Kostia.
"I got an infection in my brain. It was discovered that my brain was swollen and the doctors told me I needed to have another operation or else I would die.
"I was in despair. I turned to God for help because I just wanted to live.
"Thankfully, the operation was successful. After that I was operated on several times and I began the process of rehabilitation."
Through the Christian rehab centre in Svetlogorsk, Kostia met and fell in love with Natasha, who helped him to overcome his addiction. He now receives medical help, which has helped ensure that neither Natasha nor their two daughters are HIV positive.
Out of Svetlogorsk's population of 70,000 people, 20,000 are registered as HIV positive - and experts believe many more do not realise they are infected.
Since most of the addicts are not able to care for their children, the youngsters become social orphans and are cared for by the state.
While in Svetlogorsk, I accompanied the Operation Christmas Child team to visit and spend the night at a children's home where orphans and social orphans are cared for.
Thankfully, the facility was far from the horrific images of Eastern European children's homes I had imagined.
While the budget was obviously stretched, there were many caring staff members, the facility was clean and the children seemed mostly happy in spite of their difficult backgrounds.
The home's director, Vasily Patiuka, said 85% of the 76 children cared for by the facility were social orphans.
He said: "We try hard to create the best possible conditions for children but those who come here have gone through difficult experiences. Sometimes it really takes time to let them adapt.
"In the former USSR, schools used to have quite a totalitarian regime. When I was a schoolboy, I was told that if you do bad things, you will be punished.
"Now that I am 50 years old I have realised that you can't reform a child through punishment and threats. You can only change them through love and kindness."
Vasily said the gifts sent from South Wales through Operation Christmas Child showed the children they were loved and thought of even though they would not be spending the festive period with their families.
He said: "It's a kind of culture and love transmission. You can feel the devotion of the person who packed the box.
"Not all of the children see it as I do. Some of them like the boxes just because of the toys and sweets inside - they view it as something material.
"But on the whole, as a result of this project, you can see the way children's attitudes change towards the world. They start to realise that somebody cares about them."
Tomorrow: Read Katie's final report on her journey to Belarus
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