Our Team
We are an international team of volunteers working together to make the camp happen. Here is why we do it:
Yevgeniya Lavicka
Basel, Switzerland
“In my nature I am a person who can not cope with injustice and inequality. I would want everybody to have a chance to live a decent life. The orphan children grow up without any attention, love and care and also without proper education. As a result, they do not endeavor for better life and chose a wrong path. Therefore, I would like to help these children to become decent people and believe in themselves and their future. I do hope that our educational camp will be a good base for the sustainable development of the children.”
Lyuba Karpachova
Charlotte, NC, USA
“I would really like to share happiness, optimism and confidence in the future. It's missing in our life, but at the same time there's nothing impossible. We can build our future despite all the obstacles. I wish the project would become the first stable brick in such positive changes.”
Galyna Rufino
London, the UK
"I am privileged to have the most loving, intelligent and selfless parents. Their influence on my personality is hard to overestimate. I cannot imagine my life without them, and it's unthinkable that some children are deprived of the basic human right to be loved, protected and cared for. Giving these kids a tiny bit of warmth they deserve, sharing tips for grown-up life and providing a bit of fun seems right."
Alina Golovlyova
Kyiv, Ukraine
"I believe in the art of small steps. One global change is made up of a series of small concrete actions".
Maria Bondareva
Basel, Switzerland
"I do believe that orphan kids deserve a better future - definitely better than the one that statistics describes. Talking to the kids who join our camps, I see that they are talented, they want to change the world, they want to find their own way in life. Together we can help them to make their dreams come true."
Antonina Strickler
Basel, Switzerland
"I believe the way we treat children has a huge impact on their future life. Not every kid has loving, caring, giving good life examples parents. I cannot replace their families, but I have a chance to show children in the camp that I do care about them. I aim sharing with them the knowledge I have, show my trust and confidence, and empower each kid finding their path in life!"
Kateryna Malinovska
Dublin, Ireland
"I am helping to organize the Children-UA camp as I strongly believe that everyone deserves a chance to succeed in life. There are very few success stories of the kids from orphanages, I genuinely want to change this. The camp teaches them soft skills that they never have a chance to learn in their milieu. Children will surely be able to apply them in the future and this will help them to realize their full potential".
Oksana Voznyuk
Basel, Switzerland
"I want to show children that each of us deserves happiness, no matter where he or she grew up. We are the creators of our own happiness. Therefore, I want kids to understand that one can actually achieve his or her goals with dedication, taking step by step to achieve their dreams."
We would like to give our special thank you to the following individuals:
Kateryna Zwarg, Olena Ebel, Dmytro Vavriv, Andy Lavicka, Julia Paschuk, Carole Fritsch, Yuliya Kulakovskaya, Anastasia Klachko, Catherine Shalenaya, Yaroslava Velikaya, Andrew Alekseenko, Anastasia Nowicka, Veronika Gorbunova, Philip Laktionov, Vitaly Antyushin for organizing the camp in previous years.
Katya Mikula for volunteering in the camp, Kateryna Osadchuk for collaboration with orphanages and Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine,Ganna Soldatenko for her help with the development of the website, work with organizations; Raphael Imhof for development and coordination of the finance campaign; Dmitry Simonov for his initial help with marketing strategy and the website; Oksana Kurochka for designing our logo and promotional materials, Alexey Matiyasevich for help with translations, Stephanie Bergeron for her help with editing texts, Natalya Dryuk for her legal advices.