Businesses to help sick children

The annual global fundraiser World Children’s Day at McDonald’s took place simultaneously in 16 Ukrainian cities. This year the objective is to collect money for the reconstruction of a family room complex at the juvenile oncology ward of the Institute of Oncology at the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine.

Olympic champions Kateryna Serebrianska, Liliya Podkopaieva, Yuriy Belonoh, Olena Movchan, Yuriy Poiarkov; Olympic silver prize winner Antonina Pustovit; Olympic bronze medallists Oleksandr Krykun, Inha Babakova, Vita Stiopina; popular TV host Ihor Pelykh; Oleh Mykhailiuta, the leader of the group TNMK Fahot, as well as popular television hosts and radio DJs expressed a desire to help sick children.

“I believe that the reconstruction of the family rooms at the juvenile oncology ward will be an effective project,” noted Kateryna Yushchenko, chairperson of the international fund’s supervisory board. “We have an opportunity to combine the experience of our fund in implementing charitable programs with an active social stand on the part of private businesses, also with the institute’s administration readiness to ensure the practical implementation of the project.”

Hryhoriy Klymniuk, head of the medical academy’s juvenile oncology ward, says that children from many Ukrainian cities are living temporarily in the rehabilitation ward. They have come to the institute to be examined or are under doctors’ care after intensive therapy. Children and parents live in the ward for several weeks and during this time it is very important to make the children comfortable, to make them feel at home with their parents. “Unfortunately the rooms are in bad condition, so we have to renovate them — and the sooner the better,” he noted.