The idea of establishing “The Coronation of the Word” (All-Ukrainian contest of manuscripts. – “Delo”) appeared in the late ’90s, when me and my wife Tanya came to Kiev bookstores searching for Ukrainian books, but we hardly found any!
And those that still were available, were gathering dust in the far corners of the shelves. Then we set a goal that each Ukrainian family was able to read in Ukrainian. At the time of Stalin’s purges about 250 writers were killed. We want to return to Ukraine the same number of new names.
And for today about 180 books were published – the winners of the contest.
And after we have established a literary contest, we wanted to share our achievements: to deliver new books to libraries, orphanages, boarding schools. That is how the idea of creating the Fund “Art Skarbnitsya” (Art Treasury) appeared, meant to revive, promote and support еру Ukrainian culture and art. During the past five years, the Fund, leaded by Tatyana, has been holding annual charity masquerade ball “Carnival”, aimed to promote not only the noble entertainments, but also a noble tradition of philanthropy. Thanks to Fund “Art Skarbnitsya”, over 10 thousand books arrived to young readers from all over the country: Kiev, Zaporozhye, Sevastopol, Poltava. We donate books to public libraries, orphanages, schools; we publish the books by the contest winners, and the readers buy them. Movies are made by works of authors of “The Coronation of the Word” (“Button”, “They throw away the withered flowers” by I. Rozdobudko, “Dark Water” “The snake is crawling” by A. Kokotyukha), plays are staged (“Sweet Darusya” by M. Matios). I am extremely pleased to see how the competition is stimulating the authors for creative development: A. Kokotyukha, I. Rozdobudko, N. and A. Shevchenko are the novelists and screenwriters, A. Gavrosh combines the talents of the playwrighter and children’s writer, S. Mirny is as well both the screenwriter and novelist.
During the year the writers’ marathon is held inUkrainian cities, and every time our writers gather the full audience. It is already the promotion of reading in general – and this new level, which we didn’t even dreamt of, but have achieved.
In 2011, we will continue development of both “The Coronation of the Word” and “Carnival.” The first one will introduce a new subnomination “The best work for children”, which will be awarded in each of the existing nominations: the best song for children, best screenplay for the children movie , best play and novel for children. “Carnival” is now considering proposals for cooperation with other regions of Ukraine.
I believe, indifference is the major obstacle to the development of philanthropy in Ukraine, and, whether the lack of time, or opportunities to consider carefully the philanthropy matters. All of us should finally get rid of indifference to ourselves; we should be open to the good, be prepared to do good personally.
via orekhovao.wordpress.com
