Free Accommodation for Kids with Cancer in Ukraine

Dear Dacha supporters,

thank you for helping kids to heal in the arms of their loved ones at the Dacha!

In six months of 2019 our Dacha has become the home for 38 families. More than half of these kids lived together with their mom and dad. One-third of the children received visitors: their grandparents, brothers and sisters. Here kids feel that they are not alone fighting for their life.

We have good news from Yeva and Makar you’ve got acquainted with in the previous reports: both of them completed treatment. Makar is at home and he comes to the Dacha from time to time when he has to go to the hospital for a follow-up. Yeva’s situation is more difficult because for her to go home means to go to the occupied territory not controlled by Ukraine where there is no proper healthcare system or any other service. It would be very hard for her family to rent an apartment in Kyiv immediately after treatment but the world is not without good people who understand: a local family who went for treatment abroad for a year offered them their apartment for this time! So, Yeva and her parents will have an opportunity to start a new life in Kyiv.  

You can read about Yeva’s dream to be a princess and Makar’s desired New Year celebration with his family as well as the news from the construction of the new Dacha in the report presentation in attachment.

You can help Dacha kids more by participating in Little by Little campaign. Just make a donation up to $50 starting 09:00:00 ET on Monday, August 12 and it will be matched at 60%.

Thank you for your contributions that make Dacha possible!

Links:

• Dacha news on Facebook

• Report Dacha January June 2019 (PDF)
  

Dear Dacha supporters,

thank you for your contributions that help create this special place for kids with cancer and their families!

Recently, we’ve had a visitor from the UK at the Dacha. Zoe Wittering came to Zaporuka Foundation on assignment with Photographers without Borders, the organization supporting grass root NGOs by providing them with professional photographs and, sometimes, videos that the NGO can then use to publicize their work. As Zoe explains, “I love to take photographs but feel strongly that having photographs and documenting life should not be a privilege of the few. I also feel that, in a world where we are increasingly bombarded with images and reels of social media that don’t reflect the real life of many people, those of us who are lucky enough to be able to tell stories with images and words should also do it for those that can’t”.

Zoe came to Kyiv to capture Dacha life on camera and to tell the stories of families living here. And that’s what she says about this experience: “Staying at the Dacha is like being a guest in someone’s home. A home filled with extended family. The smell of home cooked food, the sound of little feet running, smiles and laughter, cups of tea and always a biscuit or a cake. The families have found themselves together because each of them has a seriously ill child but the overwhelming feeling at the Dacha is one of hope and positivity. As she pushed her daughter on the swings one of the mums told me that a friend had asked her how she could smile when her child was so ill. Her daughter, too young to understand, looked up and smiled. She shouldn’t live without smiles, she said”.

Also, together with Zoe and Dacha families, we visited the construction site of the new Dacha house that would provide accommodation for 15 families. As of now, the masonry works and the roof are completed. Soon windows will be installed too. And then the interior works will be planned. The good news is that the most acclaimed Ukrainian interior designer agreed to make a project for Dacha for free. In the pictures below you can see little Yeva who was the first Dacha kid to visit the new Dacha. For her, it was an exciting journey to see "her future room and playroom". Together we can make this dream come true!