The Ukraine

Once a year, the officers of Adama, the farm of the Volinsk project led by Jouke and Arianne Spriensma, meet in the Ukraine. This year, that meeting was held at the end of May. It was a busy time for the project: about eleven people were visiting to find out how Jouke and Arianne were doing and to check out how the project was progressing. World Partners is not permitted to own land in the Ukraine, so it rents land from local residents. The prospects are very good: all land rented by Adama has been fully developed. People are happy and satisfied: they receive wheat as rent, and they happily accept! Most of them are elderly and they are delighted that Jouke and Arianne treat them so well.

Part of the produce of the land will be donated to social projects in the area, such as the Childcare children's home, which houses about 25 children. Some of them are orphans, others have one or two addicted parents who have been admitted to a rehabilitation centre. Seven rehab centres form part of the Volinks project. The people living in these centres are deployed to work on the land as daytime activity and to build on discipline and structure. For the women in the women's centre, Arianne has come up with a sewing project: they sew small flags into party streamers. Other activities include making Russian dolls and baking and selling treacle waffles. All proceeds of these activities go to the women. The entire project has a positive effect on the area. There still is a future, and World Partners wants to convey that.

Hans Hamoen, chairman