Laptops for Schoolchildren in Ukraine

Dear all,

Your support for our Laptops for Ukraine is much appreciated and your involvement will make huge difference to the lives of young children in that country.

This project started last year with $25,000 of Rotary support and from that, we were able to purchase 166 laptops that were distributed to children in the immediate Khrakiv area and beyond. These were used for remote learning with most of the schools having been, at best closed, at worst, destroyed.  

With winter approaching, we were advised by the Ukrainian Rotarians with whom we have set up twinning links that we could possibly focus on the provision of heaters to families who had lost the facilities to cook and to heat their homes. Many Ukrainian houses are heated by community heating schemes and thus one bomb or missile can take out the system for many houses.

This was managed through GlobalGiving and was extremely successful with just short of $32,000 raised. This resulted in over 350 families being provided with life saving resources.

With the worst of the weather passing, we elected to return to the laptop project. We had seen in phase one of this project the difference that had been made and we were very humbled by the responses we had received. This led to the new GlobalGiving page being set up.

This in turn has seen us coming to the attention of a major oil and gas company that has made us one of the four recipients of its main charity project this year - a cross Scotland cycle challenge. This will see us receive significant funding for the laptop project and we are very exited about this. However, to satisfy the company's internal governance requirements, the money must be routed to us directly through a registered charity and we are managing this through a partner Rotary club.

That being the case, we have decided to close the GlobalGiving project page and concentrate on this new area of support.

Your contribution is hugely valued and will make a great difference to Ukrainian children. It is recognised that a generation may be lost to the war, but if education can be progressed, at least the next generation will not also be lost.

Many thanks.

Gary Macalister

Ythan Valley Rotary