10 years of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation
On July 15, 2005, 10 years ago, Rinat Akhmetov decided to establish a charitable foundation with a view to move from acts of goodwill to a coherent strategy for social development, to participate in elimination of social problems and their causes in Ukrainian society.
The strategy of the Foundation consisted in the comprehensive solution of social problems in the priority areas identified by the founder: education, child-rearing, healthcare, culture and targeted assistance.
"Ten years ago Rinat Akhmetov said these words: "Charity should be with a quiet voice. But systemic problems should be discussed loudly to be heard". During 10 years of operation the Foundation achieved unique results by all directions of its activity. During this time, thousands of children found the love of their new parents, tens of thousands of Ukrainians were cured from cancer, the incidence and mortality rate from tuberculosis have reduced by several times. Besides, more than 20,000 people were provided with targeted assistance for treatment, the Foundation literally helped many of them to survive, – Rimma Fil, the Coordinator of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, said during the briefing in Kyiv on the 15th of July. – A year ago, by decision of Rinat Akhmetov and on the basis of the Foundation, using the employees' experience and their potential, they established the Humanitarian Center, which every month helps hundreds of thousands Donbas civilians, who are doomed to survive during the war. Today we do not speak loudly. We are screaming. So that all Ukraine and the whole world know about the trouble of Donbas civilians".
Results over 10 years
"Cancer can be cured" program is the first and the only large-scale program in Ukraine, which is aimed to ensure that people in Ukraine can be diagnosed and get cancer treatment in accordance with world standards. Over the program implementation period more than 75,000 people had an opportunity to diagnose and treat a number of oncological diseases on the equipment, installed by the Foundation it the partner clinics, 650 of them are children.
"Stop TB in Ukraine" program was created in order to overcome the TB epidemic in Ukraine by improving TB diagnostics, providing access to high-quality diagnosis and treatment services to all the population groups.
During the program implementation period, the incidence among new TB cases in Donetsk region has decreased by 22% as compared to 2008, and the death rate from tuberculosis has reduced by 41 %.
"Targeted Assistance" program is providing help here and now for those people, who appeared in difficult situation. First of all the help is provided for emergency treatment and long-term rehabilitation of children. During the program implementation period the targeted assistance reached 20,702 people from all Ukraine. Besides, during the year of the Humanitarian Center's operation 17,620 Donbas civilians were provided with targeted assistance.
The goals of "Contemporary Education" program were increasing the quality of higher education for journalists in a new "Multimedia Journalism" speciality and providing the leading universities with professional teachers on "Digital Media". The main result of our six-year work was training of 150 journalists and 20 teachers from 10 universities of Ukraine.
"Dynamic Culture" direction is created to support cultural initiatives and talented artists, as they find new ideas that envision the images of the future and life of society. During the program existence period they implemented 361 innovative projects (initiatives) in museum management, literature, theatre, visual arts, cinema and interdisciplinary projects. For example, "The Tribe" by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy became the most titled Ukrainian film. The film won four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and got the European Oscar; all together the film received over 35 prestigious international film awards.
«Say No to Orphanhood" program was setting the strategically important goals for Ukrainian society back in the peacetime as well. One of the important program implementation results was the fact that 7,731 children from the whole country found their parents thanks to the all-Ukrainian National Adoption portal www.sirotstvy.net, – Darya Kasyanova, the Head of programs and projects at Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, shared. – Despite the difficult times and displacement of thousands of families, 834 children have been adopted and taken to foster families during the first six months of 2015. Today, all our efforts are aimed at a monthly assistance for Donbas residents, but employees of the Foundation are hoping that soon we all return to peacetime projects again".
The motto of "Say No to Orphanhood" program is "Every child shall live in family". The main objective of the program is ensuring the right of every orphan and child deprived of parental care to have a foster family, promotion of foster families and family-type homes and reducing the number of children, who get into orphanages. During the project implementation period they opened 2 Mother and Child Centres in Donetsk and Kyiv, a crisis centre in Dnipropetrovsk, and there are 4 operating family support centres. With the direct participation of the Foundation employees there are 39 family-type homes that have been created and currently more than 400 children are brought up there.
