Every year, August 19 is the World Humanitarian Day. In our country, the leader of the charity sector and the largest personal initiative in this area is the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
Since August 2014, the Rinat Akhmetov’s foundation has been operating in the mode of its largest program – the Humanitarian Headquarters. Its main task is to help the most vulnerable civilians of Donbass: the elderly, people with disabilities, children, large families. They receive both targeted medical care and food packages. Thanks to the active work of the fund, the lives of more than a million people in the east of the country have been saved. This work is ongoing. According to the UN, in the Donbass, millions of people still need the most necessary things, and first of all, food. Therefore, today brigades of mobile issuance of the fund deliver survival kits in 87 settlements of the gray zone and along the line of contact. Kits can also be obtained in seven stationary settlements.
Relieve pain
Each of those who receive the help from Rinat Akhmetov has his own story, full of pain and worries. The Zarub family from the village of Mironovsky, in the Bakhmut district, was no exception. Its head, Lina Alexandrovna, independently brings up three children and takes care of an elderly mother. Constant anxiety for relatives is one of the worst consequences of armed conflict for women.
“I remember how in one of the heavy shelling I was on duty at a local hospital. Mom and children hid in the basement at home, and then they were taken to Bakhmut. I in Mironovsky helped the wounded and could not get in touch with my family. Therefore, she peered with horror at everyone’s face, expecting to see her native features. Only later did I manage to leave for Bakhmut,” – said Lina Alexandrovna.
Having returned a few months later from Bakhmut, the family found a sad picture: the native house was without a roof and windows, the premises were flooded with rainwater. On the wreckage of the furniture sat an old domestic cat, with whom they already mentally said goodbye.
“The cat was crying when we took him in our arms,” Lina Alexandrovna recalled. And she added: “Unfortunately, after the upheaval, my health has been greatly shaken and now I am not working. We live off the help of Rinat Leonidovich, thank him very much for not forgetting.
The rules are mercy
The humanitarian activities of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation have been recognized and praised abroad. Today he is a full member of the European Foundations Center (EFC) and the international charity community. The EFC annual conference brings together more than 500 major European and international charities. By participating in events of this level and sharing experiences, the foundation then introduces the latest standards of philanthropy in Ukraine. Another area of work in the international arena was the maximum involvement of the world community in one of the largest armed conflicts of the 21st century, which takes place today in the center of Europe. For this, the fund published and presented in 2018 the photo book Donbass and Peace, a chronicle of the tragic events in eastern Ukraine, which was a shocking discovery for many thousands of Europeans.