The release of the annual report compiled by the Development of Ukraine Charitable Foundation was a remarkable occasion, and not just because some well-known politicians, businessmen, and public figures attended this event. The report on the activities of the past two years was an important step toward improving the reputation of Ukraine’s charitable foundations. Such steps convince our society that philanthropy is not a cover for PR exercises or advertising for certain political forces. It is about fulfilling the important civic duty of extending a helpful hand to those in need. The foundation’s report goes a long way toward reassuring the public that mercy and charity rule the world, not the magic of money.
“Since a number of problems in Ukraine require immediate action, in the next five years we will be allocating 150 million dollars for charity. I hope these funds help solve a number of problems in the fields of education and culture. We will also be delivering target-oriented aid to specific individuals,” the founder of the foundation said.
The projects are good investments in the future of our country. In 2006, the Development of Ukraine Charitable Foundation spent about 27 million hryvnias on charity and more than 66 million in 2007. The foundation’s director Anatolii Zabolotny explained that these funds were used for a variety of projects. In the field of education, the foundation launched a project called Journalism of the Digital Future, which helps young journalists master the new technologies of information gathering and processing and teaches them to quickly inform the public. As part of this project, the foundation’s partner, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, is offering a training course that has been completed by more than 10,000 people. Another educational project — Professional Ukraine — is aimed at establishing cooperation between higher educational institutions and the labor market so that young specialists can find jobs in their fields.
Another important project aimed at developing Ukrainian education is called Development of the Country: We Create History by Studying It, which the foundation carried out in November 2007, based on an initiative proposed by The Day’s editor, Larysa Ivshyna. During the course of the project, more than a thousand educational institutions and libraries in Donetsk oblast received copies of books from The Day ’s Library Series.
“In 2008 we launched two more educational projects, Support for Family-Based Forms of Upbringing and Large Families of Ukraine, which will last until the end of 2009,” Zabolotny said. “During this period we are planning to provide housing to large families in four regions of Ukraine, as well as to help future adoptive parents. In the next few years we will be working on a health- care program called Let’s Stop Tuberculosis in Ukraine. It is now being successfully implemented in Donetsk oblast, where the morbidity and mortality rates have dropped by three and six percent, respectively. In all likelihood, some of the factors that contributed to the declining figures were social advertising broadcast on all Ukrainian TV channels, a telephone hot line, and individual patients consulting specialists.”
Apart from helping the residents of Donetsk oblast, the foundation is also providing target-oriented aid to people in desperate straits. Nearly 2,000 people from various parts of Ukraine have received this type of aid in the past two years. According to Vlasta Shovkovska, the director of the foundation’s internal liaison department, assistance is given primarily to people who need expensive and difficult courses of treatment in the form of hearing aids, operations for scoliosis and cardiovascular diseases, and treatment for children diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
Everyone probably remembers that the foundation provided funds for two Dnipropetrovsk families that lost their apartments in November 2007 during a series of explosions in their building and for the families of the miners who died in the accident at the Zasiadko Coal Mine late last year. These funds were provided by the Assistance in Emergency project.
The benefactors of the charitable foundation also devote considerable attention to the development of Ukrainian culture, especially the preservation of architectural monuments. Shovkovska said that last year the foundation paid for the restoration of the Metropolitan’s Residence, part of the St. Sophia National Museum Complex in Kyiv. In March the foundation, together with the Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life in Pyrohove, will start restoring the museum’s central entrance, renovating the interior and exterior exhibition areas, and updating the security system.
