My name is Niamh Violetta Steeves I was born in Odessa, Ukraine. I was adopted by Sharon and Rob Steeves. My two brothers are Conor and Declan. Conor is 13 and Declan is 7 years old.

When I was just seven years old, people took me and my brother Conor to the orphanage. Declan joined us there two years later. I didn’t even know he was my brother when they brought him. In that orphanage were girls of all ages, from 7-16 years old. The older girls are always being really bossy to the younger girls, just because they are older that doesn’t mean that they are always right or doing the right things. There were people coming every Saturday to teach us about Bible.

When I was small I never had a Birthday, I had only one doll in my whole entire life. There wasn’t any Christmas for us until my great grandma came to look after us. On Christmas we had a very small tree and instead of having Christmas ornaments we had oranges.

On December 19th it was a special day for children because Saint Nikolai who is supposed make children dreams to come true and puts presents under the pillow almost like Santa Clause. Well my dreams never came true. When all the children are supposed to wake up in the morning and find presents under their pillow, I didn’t find anything under my pillow. My grandma said that he doesn’t came to the poor people.

Ok just imagine a little girl coming to school when everybody showing off their presents. The little girl sits down and looks at the others and one of the girls ask what did you get from Saint Nikolai and she says NOTHING. Now she is mad at him because he didn’t come to her. The girl feels really left out.

A Little girl’s dream – celebrating St Nikolai Day in Ukraine

Now lets get out of that image and start thinking the dreams of children, when their mom will came back for them or adoption family will come and take them to a home where they will be loved. These were very happy dreams. For me it was only a dream until my mom and dad came from Canada to get us. They wanted all three of us. that doesn’t happen often. Now I am happy  I have a family. I love my mom and dad and they love me. My mom and dad love children. So lets make those children’s dreams come true that every kid will feel happy.