Help Keep 15 Ukrainian Children Safe, Together, and in School

When bombs began falling on Kharkiv, the Sorin family had only one priority: getting their children to safety.

Humanitarian workers helped them escape Ukraine and reach Romania. Today, the family consists of 17 people, 15 biological children and their mother and father, trying to rebuild their lives far from everything they once knew.

All 15 children were born to the same husband and wife.

Their escape saved them from the immediate danger of war.

But it did not end their struggle.

Behind the image of a family reaching safety is a much harder reality: seventeen people living with grief, extreme financial insecurity, overcrowding, and the constant fear of losing their home.

Bridges of Faith is now working to prevent this family from becoming homeless and to ensure that the children remain safe, fed, and in school.

A Family Already in Crisis Before the War

Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the family was living in severe poverty and was known to Ukrainian child-protection services.

The parents had limited education and professional qualifications and were carrying significant emotional and psychological burdens. At one point, the children were removed from their care because the family could not provide sufficiently stable living conditions.

After the full-scale invasion began, the children were returned to their parents.

According to information shared with our team, this happened during a period when Ukraine’s institutions were under immense financial and operational pressure. The cost of supporting a child within the state-supported care system was estimated at approximately €1,000 per child each month.

Returning the children to their biological parents reduced that institutional cost.

But it did not resolve the poverty, trauma, or instability that had placed the family at risk in the first place.

It simply placed 15 vulnerable children back into the care of two already overwhelmed parents during a war.

Soon afterward, the family suffered another devastating loss.

The children’s grandmother had remained deeply attached to her home village and did not want to leave. She was later killed during an attack.

For the children, she represented family, continuity, and the place they once called home.

Her death meant that they lost not only someone they loved, but also one of their last connections to the life they had known in Ukraine.

There is no safe family home waiting for them to return to.

Safe from Bombs, but Not Yet Secure

After reaching Romania, the family was initially allowed to live rent-free in two small rooms.

It was an emergency arrangement—never a sustainable home for 17 people, but it gave them temporary shelter.

That arrangement eventually had to end following instructions from local and public-health authorities. The organization that had initially hosted the family could no longer accommodate so many people under those conditions.

Without immediate intervention, 15 children and their parents were at risk of becoming homeless.

Bridges of Faith stepped in.

We helped identify emergency accommodation and began raising support for rent, utilities, heating, food, transportation, and the children’s education.

The family is now protected from immediate homelessness, but their situation remains extremely fragile.

The father finds occasional day labor and earns approximately 150 Romanian lei, around €30, for each day he is hired.

Some weeks, work is available.

Other weeks, it is not.

Even when he works, his income is nowhere near enough to provide food, rent, clothing, utilities, school supplies, and transportation for 17 people.

For comparison, an average household in Romania may spend approximately €440 per month on food alone. A household of 17 people requires several times that amount, even when purchasing only basic necessities.

The pressure became so severe that the father asked whether work could be found for his 15-year-old daughter.

That request revealed the depth of the family’s desperation.

He was not trying to take away her future. He was trying to understand how 17 people would eat.

But a 15-year-old girl should not be forced to carry the financial burden of her parents and 14 brothers and sisters.

She belongs in school.

She should be learning, forming friendships, recovering from trauma, and preparing for a future that is not defined by poverty or war.

That is what we are working to protect.

What Bridges of Faith Is Doing

Our goal is not to create permanent dependency.

Our immediate goal is to prevent the family from collapsing under the weight of its circumstances.

Our long-term goal is to help the parents move toward stability, employment, integration, and greater independence.

Keeping the Children in School

Bridges of Faith provides the school-age children with access to education in Ukrainian.

Studying in their own language allows them to continue learning without losing additional years to displacement. It also gives them structure, friendships, trusted adults, and a daily routine—all essential for children recovering from trauma.

For the oldest daughter, school represents more than education.

It represents the right to remain a child.

Preventing Homelessness and Hunger

As donations allow, we help cover the family’s most urgent needs:

1. Rent and safe accommodation
2. Heating and electricity
3. Basic food and household supplies
4. Clothing and shoes for the children
5. Transportation
6. School materials
7. Emergency medical and practical needs

This support gives the family enough stability to begin addressing the deeper challenges they face.

A child cannot concentrate in school while wondering where the family will sleep.

Parents cannot prepare for stable employment while trying to secure the next meal for 15 children.

Before a family can rebuild, it must first be prevented from falling apart.

Building a Path Toward Independence

Together with local partners, we are developing a longer-term plan for the parents.

This includes language learning, practical training, help accessing reliable employment, and support navigating life in Romania.

The father is willing to work. The problem is that irregular day labor offers no security and cannot sustain a family of 17.

Our aim is to help the parents move from unpredictable daily work toward stable, lawful employment that allows them to provide for their children with dignity.

This will take time.

The parents are not only adjusting to a new country. They are caring for 15 biological children while carrying poverty, bereavement, displacement, and the trauma of war.

They need accountability and guidance, but they also need people willing to stand beside them while they rebuild.

Why This Family Matters

Fifteen children are growing up at the intersection of war, poverty, displacement, and family instability.

Without support, the risks are serious.

The family could lose its housing.

The children could experience hunger or prolonged educational disruption.

Older children could feel pressured to abandon school and work.

The parents could become increasingly overwhelmed.

In the worst case, the family could face separation again.

But this outcome is not inevitable.

A safe home, regular meals, access to education, and a realistic employment plan can change the direction of 17 lives.

Your gift does not simply pay a bill.

It helps keep 15 brothers and sisters together with their mother and father.

It helps prevent a 15-year-old girl from having to leave school to support her family.

It gives two struggling parents time and support to become more stable providers.

It gives children who have already lost their home, their grandmother, and their sense of security the opportunity to begin healing.

How Your Donation Helps

Your support can help provide:

1. €30 toward food for a family of 17
2. €75 toward utilities, transportation, or school supplies
3. €150 toward emergency groceries and household essentials
4. €500 toward one month of housing and family support
5. €1,000 or more toward sustained accommodation, education, and integration assistance

Every gift, large or small, helps create a protective circle around these children.

Donations will be used to meet the family’s verified needs and, when sufficient funds are raised, to strengthen the wider Bridges of Faith Family Support Program serving other displaced and vulnerable Ukrainian families facing similar crises.

Help Us Keep This Family Together

The Sorin family did not arrive in Romania with savings, professional opportunities, or a carefully prepared resettlement plan.

They arrived because war had made staying impossible.

They are safe from the bombs, but safety means more than crossing a border.

Safety means having a home tomorrow.

It means 15 children eating before they go to sleep.

It means a teenage girl being able to remain in school.

It means parents receiving the support and accountability they need to become stable.

It means 15 brothers and sisters knowing that, after everything they have lost, they will not lose one another.

Bridges of Faith has stepped between this family and homelessness.

Now we are inviting others to stand with us.

Please help us provide housing, food, education, and a path toward independence for this family of 17.

War has already taken their home and someone they loved.

Together, we can make sure it does not take away their family.