The first in Ukraine: the components of leadership. BLOG by Oleksandr Vyshniakov, the director of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Centre
In the new year with new achievements. Delovaia Stolytsia published a rating of private charitable foundations of Ukraine. Rinat Akhmetov Foundation holds the first place.
The Foundation conducts its mission surely not for ratings. When three and a half years ago, the largest programme of the Foundation, Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, began operating, the task was to help our compatriots to survive. To help those who found themselves in the military conflict zone. The Center became the largest humanitarian mission in the country. 12 million product packages were issued, 750 front-line settlements were covered. More than a million people have been saved. It is the salvation of lives that is the main mission of the Humanitarian Center.
So, the highest line in the rating means that the mission can be performed, and at the same time it is our duty to prove every day that Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has justly become a leader.
The war brought much grief to our land. Dead and wounded children... Is it possible to justify this?! And more than this, how can one look dispassionately at five-year-old Misha from Luhansk region Mom's grief? The boy had a left leg malformation, the child could remain disabled forever. Can you imagine the desperation of a mother, who did not have the money even to get to the hospital, where her son could receive quality medical care?
Doctors from Kharkiv expressed their willingness to help Misha. But in addition to surgery, the boy needed an expensive device to fix the bones of his leg and correct the malformation.
Alas, there is no state funding for the treatment of such a disease. Misha’s mother turned to the Humanitarian Center, and the boy was helped immediately. Now the child has the opportunity to live a full-fledged life. Doctors promise that the child will be able not only to walk, but to play football as well.
Targeted assistance has become an integral part of the humanitarian mission. More than nine thousand people have already received help for treatment, half of them are children.
The project “Medications for children” has been in operation for more than two years, giving an opportunity for the children under 14 years old, including those from families of IDPs residing in Donbas, to receive anticonvulsant and anti-asthmatic medications, as well as visual blood glucose test strips.
For example, the Humanitarian Center helps 9-year-old Aliosha from Donetsk, who suffers from epilepsy. The family can not buy anticonvulsants on an uncontrolled territory – they have an unstable income that is enough only for food. Aliosha’s parents cross the demarcation line, come to Kramatorsk, where the Center gives them free medications for three months ahead at no cost.
In total, 1,271 children suffering from diabetes, asthma or other diseases have already received such help. The total 3,4 thousands of medications issued by the Humanitarian Center include 1,344 anticonvulsant and 1,163 asthma sets, 231 insulin sets, 752 test strips. We provide medications that save lives every day, when it comes for a child being between life and death.
The abovementioned components are those making up the Foundation's leadership in the rating of charitable projects. Rinat Akhmetov Foundation is intending to confirm it next year once again, for the sake of those millions of people who are waiting for help.
