“Spring?!”
Liepaja is the 3rd largest city in Latvia with a current population close to 90,000. Last week the city celebrated its 383rd Birthday. It’s an ice free, manmade port on the Baltic in western Latvia, fortified by Tsarist Russia in the late 1890s that became the largest Baltic naval base of the Soviet Union during the cold war. The base housed a nuclear submarine base and significant numbers of Russian army and naval forces—a garrison of 20,000 military personnel at its height. With the end of the cold war and breakup of the Soviet Union, the base was abandoned. The last Soviet troops departed in 1994. The vast area became a wasteland of abandoned buildings and the site of street crime, drugs, and vagrancy. It was settled by the homeless, unemployed, and poor single-parent families among others, many sent by the city who owns much of the property. Liepaja itself is today a bustling, old city with a renovated downtown, significant business and commercial enterprise, an artist colony, and tourist industry. The Naval Port Area, Karosta, remains an impoverished ghetto on the northern edge of the city.
We arrived late morning by car, drove around the city, stopped for lunch then drove out to Karosta—block after block of early 1900s, two-three storey brick barracks-type buildings and dozens of 5-6 storey, Soviet style, concrete slab apartments and barracks. Many were inhabited but were mixed with uninhabited, derelict buildings with caved-in roofs, deteriorating structures, and first floor windows and doors bricked up or boarded up to discourage squatters and vandals.
We didn’t actually see any of the residences but the stories are distressing. Three generations living in 2 rooms; a single mattress (if that) on the floor for 2, or 3, or 4 kids; children under the guardianship of a grandparent because parents rights have been terminated who return to live with the parent only doors away from the guardian. The divorce rate is very high. Intermittent employment or unemployment and substance use/abuse are epidemic. A family receiving a new blanket or mattress is as likely to sell it for the money they can get as they are to use it for their children.
The light in this darkness is an afternoon/after-school 2-7 p.m. day care center for 25-30 children from the port area that operates in an upstairs one-room space about the size of a 60-70 person classroom at UNH. There are 4 small tables at one end for the lunch that is served daily, an open area for recreation and indoor games in the middle and a stage/chancel area with piano at the other end. The space is shared, without cost to the day center, with the small Baptist congregation of 20 whose pastor grew up in Karosta. Both Day Center and Church share a small office (filled with boxes of donations), kitchen and single-occupancy WC, all on the 2nd floor of the building. The Day Center itself is run by Buckners International in Latvia (same as “Shoes for Orphan Souls” program). Zande, the on-site coordinator is an energetic, highly skilled and very capable young woman with missionary spirit and zeal who is doing the best kind of social work imaginable even without the formal training.
Donations?? That’s a story in itself. There is No Need! for any more donations of stuffed animals. They line shelves and overflow bins and boxes in all of the child facilities I have visited. There is a container of donated goods from the U.S. that’s been sitting in storage at the port of entry in Riga, held up at a cost of 1,000 LVLs per month (that’s $2,000 per month). The Customs Office says the organization must have a non-profit permit to take delivery of the container and the finance ministry says no such documentation is required. There’s more. Customs regulations require that donated goods be “used”. Most of the donation containers from the U.S. include boxes of diapers. Think of the absurdity of used Pampers or Huggies. (Social work types might imagine a Saul Alinsky type operation to encourage change using cartons of used diapers, preferably several days old, to deliver personally to the customs officials.)
There are other interesting details to the story. Some of you may recall that Cheryl and I were resident managers of a Psychiatric Halfway House in Boston for the first 3 years of our marriage. In a major "catch 22" Cheryl cooked daily for 23 people with no stove or oven using 4 electric frying pans and hot plates. The City of Boston “rooming house permit” did not allow stoves or ovens and any attempt to convert the Back Bay “Rooming” house to apartments or condos for mentally ill would have kicked off a firestorm of protests and legal wrangling that might well have killed the project. The Day Center in Liepaja faces some similar challenges. Inspectors for the city have thus far denied a formal occupancy permit until the kitchen space is up to code with sink, dish washer, an oven/stove and refrigerator. They are there, donated by a local dealer, waiting to be installed. Further, some city officials say there’s no need for the facility in the first place—“the government” should be providing these services.
The children? Absolutely delightful! There were 23 yesterday—2 five year olds, 2 13-14, and others ranging in between. They’ve had other visitors so they greeted us with handshakes and high fives, asked our names in English and sang a medley of Easter and other religious songs for the guests. Several older children were practicing dance moves to a tape-recorded, hip-hop tune when we walked in—they were good! Three youngsters in small chef’s hats and white aprons served as waitress/waiters for the children’s afternoon meal.
It’s an impressive beginning; a small bright spot of spring, worthy of nurture, in an otherwise bleak, still wintery landscape.
Note: The pictures come from Wikipedia since Cheryl has the camera at home these 2 weeks. They don’t really give much sense of either the children or overall conditions but do show Liepaja. The Orthodox Cathedral is located on the grounds of the former military base.
March 20, 2008
rej
Liepaja is the 3rd largest city in Latvia with a current population close to 90,000. Last week the city celebrated its 383rd Birthday. It’s an ice free, manmade port on the Baltic in western Latvia, fortified by Tsarist Russia in the late 1890s that became the largest Baltic naval base of the Soviet Union during the cold war. The base housed a nuclear submarine base and significant numbers of Russian army and naval forces—a garrison of 20,000 military personnel at its height. With the end of the cold war and breakup of the Soviet Union, the base was abandoned. The last Soviet troops departed in 1994. The vast area became a wasteland of abandoned buildings and the site of street crime, drugs, and vagrancy. It was settled by the homeless, unemployed, and poor single-parent families among others, many sent by the city who owns much of the property. Liepaja itself is today a bustling, old city with a renovated downtown, significant business and commercial enterprise, an artist colony, and tourist industry. The Naval Port Area, Karosta, remains an impoverished ghetto on the northern edge of the city.
We arrived late morning by car, drove around the city, stopped for lunch then drove out to Karosta—block after block of early 1900s, two-three storey brick barracks-type buildings and dozens of 5-6 storey, Soviet style, concrete slab apartments and barracks. Many were inhabited but were mixed with uninhabited, derelict buildings with caved-in roofs, deteriorating structures, and first floor windows and doors bricked up or boarded up to discourage squatters and vandals.
We didn’t actually see any of the residences but the stories are distressing. Three generations living in 2 rooms; a single mattress (if that) on the floor for 2, or 3, or 4 kids; children under the guardianship of a grandparent because parents rights have been terminated who return to live with the parent only doors away from the guardian. The divorce rate is very high. Intermittent employment or unemployment and substance use/abuse are epidemic. A family receiving a new blanket or mattress is as likely to sell it for the money they can get as they are to use it for their children.
The light in this darkness is an afternoon/after-school 2-7 p.m. day care center for 25-30 children from the port area that operates in an upstairs one-room space about the size of a 60-70 person classroom at UNH. There are 4 small tables at one end for the lunch that is served daily, an open area for recreation and indoor games in the middle and a stage/chancel area with piano at the other end. The space is shared, without cost to the day center, with the small Baptist congregation of 20 whose pastor grew up in Karosta. Both Day Center and Church share a small office (filled with boxes of donations), kitchen and single-occupancy WC, all on the 2nd floor of the building. The Day Center itself is run by Buckners International in Latvia (same as “Shoes for Orphan Souls” program). Zande, the on-site coordinator is an energetic, highly skilled and very capable young woman with missionary spirit and zeal who is doing the best kind of social work imaginable even without the formal training.
Donations?? That’s a story in itself. There is No Need! for any more donations of stuffed animals. They line shelves and overflow bins and boxes in all of the child facilities I have visited. There is a container of donated goods from the U.S. that’s been sitting in storage at the port of entry in Riga, held up at a cost of 1,000 LVLs per month (that’s $2,000 per month). The Customs Office says the organization must have a non-profit permit to take delivery of the container and the finance ministry says no such documentation is required. There’s more. Customs regulations require that donated goods be “used”. Most of the donation containers from the U.S. include boxes of diapers. Think of the absurdity of used Pampers or Huggies. (Social work types might imagine a Saul Alinsky type operation to encourage change using cartons of used diapers, preferably several days old, to deliver personally to the customs officials.)
There are other interesting details to the story. Some of you may recall that Cheryl and I were resident managers of a Psychiatric Halfway House in Boston for the first 3 years of our marriage. In a major "catch 22" Cheryl cooked daily for 23 people with no stove or oven using 4 electric frying pans and hot plates. The City of Boston “rooming house permit” did not allow stoves or ovens and any attempt to convert the Back Bay “Rooming” house to apartments or condos for mentally ill would have kicked off a firestorm of protests and legal wrangling that might well have killed the project. The Day Center in Liepaja faces some similar challenges. Inspectors for the city have thus far denied a formal occupancy permit until the kitchen space is up to code with sink, dish washer, an oven/stove and refrigerator. They are there, donated by a local dealer, waiting to be installed. Further, some city officials say there’s no need for the facility in the first place—“the government” should be providing these services.
The children? Absolutely delightful! There were 23 yesterday—2 five year olds, 2 13-14, and others ranging in between. They’ve had other visitors so they greeted us with handshakes and high fives, asked our names in English and sang a medley of Easter and other religious songs for the guests. Several older children were practicing dance moves to a tape-recorded, hip-hop tune when we walked in—they were good! Three youngsters in small chef’s hats and white aprons served as waitress/waiters for the children’s afternoon meal.
It’s an impressive beginning; a small bright spot of spring, worthy of nurture, in an otherwise bleak, still wintery landscape.
Note: The pictures come from Wikipedia since Cheryl has the camera at home these 2 weeks. They don’t really give much sense of either the children or overall conditions but do show Liepaja. The Orthodox Cathedral is located on the grounds of the former military base.
March 20, 2008
rej
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