The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation Received a Prestigious International Award
The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has become one of the five finalists in the prestigious international CSR & Nonprofit Awards. The awards ceremony was supposed to take place in New York last year, but due to the coronavirus epidemic it was cancelled and the award statuettes were sent to the winners by post. The award arrived in Ukraine only at the end of January. The Foundation was recognized for its social campaign Donbass and Civilians, which included a book under the same name and a series of videos, video monologues War Through the Eyes of Children, a theatrical performance based on the book, photo exhibitions throughout the country and a mural on one of the buildings in Mariupol. It shows Milana Abdurashytova, a girl who survived the shelling of Skhidnyi micro-district in Mariupol in 2015.
‘The social campaign Donbass and Civilians is based on the stories of ordinary people whose lives after the beginning of the armed conflict were divided into before and after. These are stories of children and adults who learned to live anew. They lost their loved ones, lost all their property in an instant, they hid from shelling and lived in cellars and basements. They survived and now dream about peace finally coming to Donbass more than about anything else. It is very important that these stories are known and remembered. We are proud that thanks to the campaign we managed to draw the attention of the world community to the problem of Donbass civilians,' says Yuliia Yershova, Chief Communications Officer of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
The CSR & Nonprofit Awards have been presented in Washington DC since 2009. Every year the judging panel studies non-profit initiatives and examples of high corporate social responsibility from around the world. The most outstanding ideas and solutions that change society and the world for the better come to the awards final. Over the years, UNICEF, Steven Spielberg's Holocaust Victims Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and others have become winners and finalists of the CSR & Nonprofit Awards.
Today, the Foundation continues to tell the world about the tragedy of Donbass. To that end, an online initiative – the Museum of Civilian Voices – was created. The key task of the museum is to objectively and fully document the testimonies of civilians who suffered as a result of the armed conflict in Donbass. Even today, the Museum of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation is the largest collection of these stories in Ukraine. If the conflict has affected you too, please go to https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/ru/my-story and fill out a short questionnaire to make your input in the preservation of memories.
