The Odessa Charity Fund “the Way Home Foundation” was established in 1996 by Sergey Kostin.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, social conditions in the city of Odessa deteriorated quickly, mostly due to sudden unemployment because many companies collapsed. The impact on the society was devastating, the sudden change in life was more than many people and families could bear. Without work and an income many families eventually landed on the streets, and the desperation many people felt in the situation resulted in crime, prostitution, alcoholism and drug abuse. Based on this situation Mr. Kostyn founded the Way Home Foundation in 1996, and started working to improve conditions for homeless and step by step new projects for homeless were started up. Some of these projects are still running today.

The biggest milestone for the Way Home Foundation and its work among homeless came in 2005, when a proposal for a change in the laws affecting Homeless people and registration, was made into law by the parliament of Ukraine.

Through the work with homeless people, it quickly became clear homeless people were overexposed to HIV/AIDS infections through prostitution and drug abuse, and in 1998 the foundation started their  HIV/AIDS prevention program, which is still running. Today the foundation serves more than 11000 of the heavy drug users in the Odessa region, annually 100.000′s of syringes and condoms are distributed, 1000′s of hiv/aids tests are performed, other medical assistance is offered as well as legal assistance.

Based on experience from the two programs mentioned above it was clear that children were suffering and taking to the streets in large numbers because of this. Children were also coming to Odessa from Moldova and Romania to live on the street of Odessa under humiliating conditions. In 2000 the foundation started programs to help the street children, and today the foundation is running an orphanage for 25 children, we have organized 2 mobile social patrols which visits the children with food, clothes, offer of medical treatment and psychology assistance every day. In addition we run a daycare center, where street children can come to wash clothes, take a shower, get medical treatment, legal assistance and use computers to surf the internet.

Today the Odessa Humanitarian Fund has 80 full time employees, in addition more than 40 volunteers work regularly in the projects we run. We work out of seven locations in Odessa and operate offices in Ilichovsk and Ismail, cities close to Odessa.