Olga Kurylenko sheds light on bleak reality in Ukrainian orphanages
"There were just tons of beds next to each other with nothing besides them. No toys, no books, just empty. It looked like a cemetery. I just could not believe there were human beings there," says Olga Kurylenko. The star with Ukrainian roots describes her visit to Kyiv.
Olga Kurylenko, the star of "007 Quantum of Solace," shared with journalists from the British newspaper The Times about her visit to an orphanage in Ukraine. What she saw during her visit reminded her of the extreme poverty in which she grew up.
Olga Kurylenko on the Ukrainian orphanage
"These are kids under the age of one who have just been abandoned. They are growing up without love, nobody is hugging them or touching them in a compassionate way," the actress recounts.
Kurylenko, an ambassador for Hope And Homes For Children, admitted that the visit among Ukrainian orphans reminded her of what her start in life was like.
"I did not have my father and my mother did not have the means. We ate grains. But we were eating those grains together. I felt that we could dream together, we talked together about me growing up and making something of my life. Which I did," she said. "And it made me think that poverty is one thing but non-love is a completely other thing. It is better to be poor and loved than to be rich and unloved," the actress added.
Kurylenko and the charity organization raise awareness of how many children around the world end up in orphanages for various reasons. The organization states that there are even 5.4 million abandoned children.
"My mother raised me in Ukraine on her own, where single mums experience alarming rates of poverty. I was one of the lucky ones. Sadly, so many less fortunate single parents are coerced into putting their children into orphanages. Locked up alone, they can face torture, sexual violence and trafficking. @europeancommission, why are you allowing Ukraine to backtrack on shutting down its 700 state-run orphanages? They must fund new social services instead - strengthening families to stay together," Kurylenko wrote on the organization's website as early as 2021.
In the same year, she shared a photo with her mother on her Instagram account.
Olga Kurylenko was born on November 14, 1979, in Berdyansk, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union. Her father had Ukrainian roots, while her mother, Marina, was born in Russia. Her parents divorced when she was three years old, and she had no contact with her father until she saw him only when she was eight years old. At the age of 15, she moved to Moscow, and a year later to Paris, where she signed a contract with a modeling agency. She appeared on magazine covers and in music videos, making her film debut in 2004.
