“At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, the Ruslan Shostak Charitable Foundation evacuated 3,500 orphans and their companions from the front-line regions: Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions as part of the “Childhood Without War” project. All of them received shelter in Turkey – in hotels on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. At the expense of benefactors, they were provided with proper conditions for living, development and education.”, — write on: ua.news
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, the Ruslan Shostak Charitable Foundation evacuated 3,500 orphans and their companions from the front-line regions: Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions as part of the “Childhood Without War” project. All of them received shelter in Turkey – in hotels on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
At the expense of benefactors, they were provided with proper conditions for living, development and education. After almost three years of stay in Turkey, the children were returned to a safe region of Ukraine, where they are undergoing adaptation.
Project details: children received 850 hours of additional educational classes and courses, attended 170 excursions and entertainment events; 5,200 sets of winter and summer clothes and 3,300 pairs of shoes were purchased for them. In total, 8 million euros were invested.
The project “Childhood without war” entered the World Book of Records. A documentary film “Save generation UA” was shot about this charitable initiative, which won 7 international awards.
She told UA.News in an interview how it was possible to implement the largest charity project for the evacuation of orphaned children Yevgenia But, CEO of the Ruslan Shostak Charitable Foundation.
Mrs. Yevgenia, can you remember the moment when you decided to take responsibility for organizing the evacuation of children within the framework of the “Childhood without War” project?
Evgenia But: First of all, it was Ruslan Stanislavovich Shostak’s decision. This is his mission. You just had to act. There were children who needed to be saved, and he saved them. On the basis of this, the Charitable Fund was already created, and a team was formed.
Events unfolded rapidly. Children were sent out in groups of 170-200. For the first iteration, 1,700 children were taken out of the front-line zone. It had to be done very quickly by various means of transport, 9 planes, trains, buses were involved. First, the evacuees were transported to Mukachevo, and from there to Romania. Already from Romania, they were transported by plane to Turkey, to Antalya.
Evacuation was only the first stage of the project. And everything else started later. It was necessary to provide the children with a safe stay, proper medical examination, nutrition, psychological support, and organize classes so that the children could learn.
It should not be forgotten that these were orphaned children, in particular teenagers, who were in difficult living conditions even before that. When they got into a new environment, of course, many different situations arose. But with the joint efforts of our team, in particular psychologists, and with the help of the Ministry of Family and Social Policy of Turkey, all issues were resolved. And the children were quite happy, being in our project.
How was the resettlement of children? Did you find hotels first and then start sending the kids to Turkey?
Evgenia But: In fact, everything was in the process of evacuation. So to speak, the planes were assembled on the way. Ruslan Stanislavovych was in Turkey at that time and was urgently looking for opportunities to resettle the children. That is, the children were already on the way, and they were looking for hotels at this time.
In the beginning, there were several hotels on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea where children were accommodated. At the final stage of the project, we already left one hotel “Larysa”.
And what was the participation of the Turkish side, how did they help you at the level of local authorities?
Evgenia But: From Turkey, the Ministry of Family and Social Policy was directly involved in the project, which also took care of these children. They helped organize the space and ensure the protection of children in the area where we were located.
And how was your interaction with state bodies? How was their control carried out?
Evgenia But: No one taught us how to act in such circumstances during the war. All of us learned already in the process of evacuating children. State bodies, too.
Subsequently, monitoring visits of special commissions were introduced, which monitor compliance with the rights of children evacuated and displaced abroad. In addition to monitoring, the members of these commissions make practical recommendations on what needs to be improved to ensure children have a proper stay.
Monitoring commissions, which include representatives of the authorities, Ukrainian and international experts in the field of protection of children’s rights, go not only to Turkey. They visit all places of stay of evacuated children in different countries. By the way, cases are completely different.
After completing the project in Turkey, what insights and conclusions could you share? Maybe there was experience that will be needed for charity projects in the future?
Evgenia But: In fact, there were many insights. In short, they can be described by many letters D: action – in those circumstances, it was necessary to act quickly; long-term tolerance, because it is interaction with children; home, because every child should be in a family. These are the main conclusions we made.
A lot was done, but only in synergy could such a large-scale project be born. That is, one Charitable Fund could not simply overcome it. Because the Foundation was, in fact, the only one who took on such a function – the evacuation and shelter of children in a safe place.
In other countries, the function of financial support for the stay of children in evacuation was assumed by the state. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that, so we turned to wherever possible: to international organizations, to businesses and people who just wanted to help.
And did you have previous experience of managing such large-scale projects for children? How did it happen that you joined this charity initiative?
Evgenia But: I previously had business experience. For more than 20 years, I worked specifically in business and headed various companies. For over 20 years, I worked at the MTI company, which manages the INTERTOP and PANDORA networks. Then I was the CEO of PANDORA, then the CEO of “House of Toys”. That is, I have a purely business background.
why am i here Because at one point, especially when your country is in such a state as it is now, you realize that you have to do a little more than just make money. And here I can realize my business experience. Because organizing such processes requires a lot of operational work.
You need to be able to raise funds in the same way as it is done in business. It is necessary to establish communications, as they do in business. So now I’m just using all my 20+ years of experience. And he helps me a lot in the implementation of large-scale charity projects.
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