Arishka doesn't leave the room and shows no interest in anything - that's what almost all the residents of the oncology ward say about the girl. Arina has astrocytoma. A severe tumor disease, in simple terms. And Arinka is also only six years old. That's the age when children have an inexhaustible supply of energy. Except that…
Children are dying in oncology departments.
I learned this terrible fact six months after I started volunteering. It was a girl named Olya with Down syndrome. She died of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. I still remember the shock I felt. How could it be, after all the treatment had yielded results and suddenly everything was so ... My second loss was four-year-old Sonya. She died of a hemorrhage. Up to that moment, my knowledge about cancer was limited to two facts: I knew that these babies lose their hair (and even then, I had no idea why it happens at all) and that the treatment is very complicated (I had yet to find out how complicated it really is). But one thing I knew for sure was that I didn't want to lose any more, so I had to do something.
We were few, just a few crazy and sincere people who were willing to move mountains to save a child's life. Then, 5 years ago, we didn't even think that our small team would become something more than an initiative group. We just looked for money, medicine, and donors every day.
Today we are the Charity Fund "Time for the Kind". This is my life, my soul, my heart! Our foundation helps not only cancer patients, but also children with various other serious illnesses, we pay for the operations, examinations, searches, and purchase of expensive and hard to find drugs. We help orphans in orphanages. Our team is a burning, sincere, kind and bright people.
I am proud of the composition of our foundation - it is really REAL! The foundation is my unshakable faith. Faith that the children will live!
Head of the Foundation Maria Afanasenko
Created: 05.06.2021
Updated: 05.06.2021
