You shall not say “we” if you are standing on the sidelines (с)
On SCM’s anniversary we normally give gifts. Last year we decided to present a sculpture by Anya Kiselyova Young Fans to mark our 13th anniversary but had no time to install it – the war broke out in the city. It still continues so we opted not to arrange any celebrations or give gifts. That’s not on the agenda now. Shells instead of fireworks are exploding in the skies of Donbass. Hundreds of thousands of people have been deprived of basic necessities and driven to despair. SCM’s shareholder established a Humanitarian Centre to help people. We do help and our employees are doing volunteer work.
They tell us about more than a thousand of calls for help that the Hotline of the Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Centre receives every day. People ask for food and medicines. Sometimes a human life depends on whether medicines are available. Sometimes it is a life of a little child. People also say, “We need food and medicines badly but it is no less important to realise that someone still needs us, thinks of us and cares. This feeling is often the only thing that keeps our will to live.”
To mark our 14th anniversary this year, we carried out a corporate charitable auction. Our staff made every lot with own hands. A third of our employees auctioned off their handicraft, others bid for them. More than 200 sold lots collected several tens of thousands of hryvnias.
We know whom to give the money too. It is a grandmother struggling for the future of a little four-year-old girl Diana Popkova. Her family and she came under fire in Starobeshevo motorway in Donetsk Oblast. The family was killed, she survived and was brought to Donetsk Oblast Trauma Hospital with a heavy wound. You can’t listen to her grandmother without tears. “Diana was crying out loud the first few nights. I didn’t know what to do with her. She was asking – Aren’t they coming to me ever again?”
Diana is being treated. We are helping but it is still painful for her. For me. For us. But when you help someone who is suffering more than you, then the pain gets easier and fades.
