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PTC woman making documentary about Ukrainian orphanage

By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@TheCitizenNews.com

It is said that children will change your life completely. Peachtree City resident Amy Williams know this true as over 400 children have turned her world upside down.

She has spent several months volunteering in an orphanage in the Ukraine and making a documentary about the children there. The stories she has heard are at times heartbreaking, but they can also be seen as inspiring, as it has forced Williams to re-examine her life.

Williams has been working in television for years, doing as she puts it, “a little bit of everything.” She has worked on programs for Fox Sports and the 1996 Olympics and has also worked as investigative producer for several other networks. She has done pieces on nursing home abuse for PBS as well as pieces on autism and Down’s Syndrome.

“I was working at WGN and feeling unfulfilled,” said Williams, as she recounted how her journey began. “I started freelancing and came up with the idea of doing a story on an orphanage in the Ukraine. I called PBS and told them the idea. They said they couldn’t pay for it but that they were interested and for me to go crazy.”

So she did go crazy, or what some undoubtedly would consider crazy. She joined up with the Global Volunteers program, which got her over to the Ukraine, where she agreed to teach some journalism classes at a local university. Global Volunteers' goal is to help establish a foundation for peace through mutual international, cross-cultural understanding. Today, as the preeminent private, nonprofit, nonsectarian organization offering volunteer vacations worldwide, Global Volunteers mobilizes some 150 service-learning teams year-round to work in 19 countries on six continents. Williams lived at the orphanage, where she began working on her film, met the children, taught them and learned a lot as well.

“Each child there has a heartbreaking story,” said Willams, who told of children who were unlikely to be adopted before turning 18 and would then be released into a poor country with few skills and not much to go on, as well as children that were abandoned by their parents at the orphanage because they could no longer take care of them. Williams went on to say that the people who ran the orphanage were very dedicated and did the best they could, but the orpahange did not have a lot of funding and the teachers only made $20 a month.

The conditions at the orphanage were not terrible, as the children had food, clothing and shelter. However, the children stayed 20 to a room, had a limited number of clothes, had few, if any, programs and fewer toys and games. The orphanage, located 30 kilometers from Zaporzhe, which is south of Kiev and located near the Black Sea, is one of 29 orphanages in the area and one can imagine that they are all like the one that Williams stayed in.

It would be impossible to see the situation that these children were in and not do anything and Williams did a lot, including buying shoes for the children, taking 200 of the children to a performance of the Moscow Circus and having her fiancee, who is in the medical reserve, come over and bring supplies and help with their medical needs.

“It was just amazing to see things that we all take for granted really make an impression on them,” said Williams, who got to take several of the children out for their first pizza and soda and also saw a number of them ride in their first elevator. “I take nothing for granted now.”

Though she did not go over with any intention of adopting, she is now in the process of adopting two girls, ages 9 and 12. One of the things she hopes her film illustrates is that the adoption process is not as difficult or expensive as some people may think. Williams was also fortunate to capture several adoptions while she was over there and was then able to meet up with the children and their new families stateside.

Williams is also looking to start a few local programs here that would help the children over there, including a pen pal program, which she said would really make their life and would benefit children on both sides, as well as a program where area residents could donate shoes and sporting equipment to the orphanage.

“The kids would really appreciate it and everyone involved in the program will be able to see how it benefits these children,” Williams said.

Williams believes the adoption of the two girls will be complete sometime early next year and the film will hopefully be finished soon afterwards. From there, she is planning on entering the film in a number of festivals. Her hope is that people will think about adoption and consider adopting older children. Williams, who also plans to start volunteering locally at the Friday Johnson Youth protection Homes, also spoke highly of the Global Volunteers program, as well as her whole experience so far.

“It changes your life for the better,” Williams said.

If you are interested in participatig in the pen pal program or would like to know how to donate goods to the orphanage, e-mail to wamylou1212@aol.com or phone 770-486-7296.