Diversification Promises Sustainability for Rehab Center
Return to Life, a rehabilitation center in central Ukraine, first received a grant through USAID’s Strengthening Civil Society Organizations project (USAID/UCAN) to make and sell concrete paving blocks to raise additional revenue to fund its activities. The center, which houses up to 16 former drug addicts (many of whom are HIV/AIDS positive) and live-in recovery counselors, was primarily focused on launching a social-purpose business and had not considered growing into a larger-scale operation or connecting with others doing similar things. But with continued USAID/UCAN support, Return to Life has developed multiple business operations to diversify its revenue streams, better positioning itself for self-sufficiency.
In the summer of 2007, UCAN invited a community farmer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to tour Ukraine and share his expertise on improving local social entrepreneurship efforts. His visit to Return to Life so inspired the center’s residents that they decided to emulate his inexpensive and energy efficient method of greenhouse and compost farming as a way to utilize limited land and increase farming output. Through its legacy organization–the Foundation for Ukraine–and with leveraged funds from the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, USAID/UCAN made a second grant to the center for building one of its three planned greenhouses. The project also put Return to Life in touch with Heifer International, a global farming non-governmental organization, which has since pledged to finance an additional greenhouse (a third will be built with funds raised in-house) and helped the CSO set-up a state-of-the-art, patented rabbit farm and plant apple and apricot trees on its one-hectare piece of land. Heifer International will also fund an extended, hands-on work tour to Milwaukee for up to six Ukrainian CSO members to learn sustainable and inexpensive agricultural techniques like aquaponics and compost farming.
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A former drug addict, Oleh, stacks a paving block to dry in the open air prior to shipping.
Photo Credit: Wayne Curley |
Today, a small orchard of apple trees stands before the front of the rehab center and newly planted tomatoes have sprouted to the side of the building; the back of the center is where the first of three greenhouses stands next to the small rabbit holding compartments. The center’s foundation registered a business in April 2007 to gain access to credit for the purchase of farming equipment. Sales from the concrete paving blocks continue to bring in $600-800 per month, enough to subsidize two rehab residents and the purchase of tools and basic farming equipment. And now, center residents have a variety of work therapy options to choose from. “Our residents have two to three hours of work therapy daily,” says Oleskandr Ostapov, Return to Life Director, “and there is plenty of work around.”
New arrivals to the rehab center are exposed to all sorts of in-door and outdoor work therapy activities and are encouraged to pursue activities at which they excel. “I see someone with a plow in the garden who looks like a natural,” Oleh, a former addict and now live-in counselor says. “I don’t say anything the next day; I just give him the plow again.”
Recently, another community farmer from western Ukraine who uses agriculture to reach out to youth with various disabilities linked up with Return to Life during a grant meeting in Kyiv, eager to learn more about the CSO’s activities. The Foundation for Ukraine hosted the event as part of its social entrepreneurship enhancement program designed to bring partners together for networking and peer learning.
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