Article in the publication “Ukraine Today”. You can view the original here. Next is a quote.
Ukrainians have united in tens of thousands of public organizations in order to improve life in their country
On the streets of Ukrainian cities, you can often meet elderly people selling personal valuables – pieces of their lives, in order to receive a small additional income necessary to cover daily household needs. These are our grandparents, our teachers, our neighbors who cannot live on their small pension. It is extremely difficult to remain indifferent. Many Ukrainians are ready to help the elderly, but do not know how to do it, or do not have enough time, or hope that there will be others who will help.
However, there are active people in Ukraine who begin to help the elderly, regardless of their free time, those who make it their task to make the lives of lonely elderly people better and brighter. Subsequently, such activists unite in teams of like-minded people, create public organizations and already systematically work in the field they have chosen for themselves. One of such teams is the “Starenki” charitable foundation.
“From the very beginning, we did not have a goal to create our charity fund, we wanted to become volunteers specifically in organizations that take care of lonely seniors”, – recalls the co-founder of the fund Iryna Baranenko. – But, after searching on the Internet and among acquaintances information about social projects that would help the elderly, we realized that there were no such projects in Ukraine at that time. That’s when we decided: we need to act… We started from scratch, relying only on our own experience and a sincere desire for something do, not complain.”
The charity fund, created by five Ukrainian girls to make old age in Ukraine happier, has been operating for the sixth year. During this time, its participants collected more than 6,000 food kits for lonely elderly people, 3 million hryvnias in aid. Initially, the fund was established in Kyiv and helped pensioners in several districts, and now it takes care of elderly people in Lviv and Dnipro as well. In the future, the Foundation plans to look for like-minded people throughout Ukraine.