The Mennonite Family Centre in Zaporizhia, Ukraine is seeing an increased demand for its services. The centre provides assistance to the poorest of the poor with its main emphasis being a home care program. Louie Sawatzky of Winnipeg has been the project director since the program started 15 years ago. He said the Ukraine government is trying to improve the economy but its latest effort has backfired.

"The minimum wage was virtually doubled beginning on Jan. 1. That was supposed to give workers a real hand up. But the economy just doesn't seem to be able to absorb that kind of a change so the result really was that many businesses simply closed shop. Many of them opened again a little later on, unofficially, but maintained the wages."

As a result, he said the Mennonite Family Centre is facing greater demand than ever.

"Right now we are at capacity. Our biggest program is the home care program. We have approximately 145 homes that we visit. We have a total of 32 staff people who provide, on a monthly basis, about 3,200 hours of actual care in the homes. We can expand when funds are available so this is a bit of a fluid number. We have been expanding at a rate of about 10-15 per cent a year simply to enable our staff to accommodate the increases."

Sawatzky noted their donor base, made up largely of Mennonites who immigrated from Ukraine, or their children, has been dwindling as these people get older and die, and they need new donors. Interested people can contact Sawatzky at 204-253-3631.