– In our country, there are about 100 000 orphans, and only one tenth of them being are brought up in families, says Yuri Sviridov, the Marketing and Communications Director of FC “Shakhtar”. – Family-type organizations are very effective tools in the fight against social orphanhood in Ukraine. That is why FC “Shakhtar” has been involved for a long time in this project organized by Rinat Akhmetov’ Foundation, supporting this important direction. Together we want to draw attention of community and fans to this problem, using all our capacities.
Almost all the day kids from five families together with their foster parents were walking around the stadium and museum, had played tabletop football with the animators, and took the pictures with the Moles (mascots of Shakhtar). Even the Fan-cafe located at the stadium was at their disposal. Here, young visitors had the delicious breakfast and lunch, as well as rested after two hours of exciting excursions, but also met with the organizers of the festival, who presented gifts from Shakhtar.
– We are all so impressed – Elena Zosim-Vinnik, the mother of two and adoptive mother of five, could not hide her feelings. – Frankly, until now, I could hardly believe that kids could be invited and come to the stadium just like that and get such memorable experiences. I thought it was a joke and even called back – it turned out to be true. We are not accustomed to that much attention and such presents, so we are very grateful that we had an opportunity to visit Donbass Arena. After all, all our children are football fans. Look at them – they are happy!
According to the children, visiting their favorite team locker rooms and museum of the club was the most interesting thing for them on this day. Championship trophies, life-size statues of players, hand- and footprints of legendary players, photos of Pitmen on the Wall of Fame – everything was interesting to the children. They were taking pictures next to almost every exhibit. And the foggy screen and interactive “football” floor brought the guys to the real excitement.
Darya Kasyanova, Leader of foster care promotion and family building in Rinat Akhmetov’ Foundation “Development of Ukraine”:
FC “Shakhtar” has been our partner in the project Say No to Orphanhood since the last year. It is very important that the football club, players and employees share our values and are doing their best that children live and are raised in the families. It has become a tradition that we invite children from family-type organizations to visit Donbass Arena. Last year we held such event, but only children from Donetsk region were invited. This time, we expanded the geography. The kids dreamt to see the Donbass Arena, they have never been here before. We gave them this opportunity and are happy that the children’s party was a success.
via orekhovao.wordpress.com
