Charity campaign "School Backpack"

For the fifth year in a row, the charitable foundation Caritas Odesa UGCC organizes the "School Backpack" campaign. At the end of summer, together with volunteers, we collect fully equipped backpacks needed by our wards — children from crisis families, HIV-infected, first-graders who were forced to leave their homes due to hostilities in the East of the country.

Over the previous four years of the campaign, we managed to increase the number of backpacks 10 times — from 22 in 2014 to 200 in 2017. Our goal this year is to collect 200 sets for first-graders in Odesa city and Petroverovka village of Odesa region.

We are confident that good education is necessary for positive changes in our country, and we also know that every child in a few years will be creating the future of our state. That's why it's very important right now to provide first-graders from families with difficult life circumstances with necessary school supplies, so they attend classes with pleasure and understand that they are no different from other children. After all, every child has the right to education, regardless of their status.

It would seem that collecting 200 backpacks is too difficult, and indeed it is if done independently. However, through the efforts of many caring people, a lot can be accomplished. We try to use all opportunities to collect stationery, so we cooperate with local businesses, national companies, individuals. On the My City platform we plan to raise funds for 50 backpacks. The remaining 150 we plan to collect with the help of partners and private donors.

Why?

The cost of one fully equipped backpack for a first-grader averages 1200 hryvnias and for many families this amount, unfortunately, is unaffordable. In such cases, the child either doesn't go to school, or goes with the most modest set of stationery. In the second case, there's a huge probability that the child will become a target for classmates' mockery, which will distract them from their main task at school — learning.

How can you help?

• support the project on the "My City" platform for any comfortable amount
• organize stationery collection among your colleagues (we send all necessary materials) or friends
• bring stationery to IQSpace (9 Zhukovsky St.) or to the Caritas office (13 Lermontovsky Lane)