Help cancer patients in Russia

During these uncertain times and lockdown we are really grateful to all donations that are still coming. As most of you know, oncology patients are in a high risk group for COVID-19 and in addition to lockdown challenges, our need for psychological support is needed more than ever. We understand that during these challenging times it is hard to commit to donations, so every penny you decide to donate will be greatly appreciated.

We are happy to let you know that we were able to move a number of our events into an online format. We’ve been having an online art therapy for 5 weeks starting April 14. Then we were very lucky to receive a micro-grant from GlobalGiving and conducted another 5 sessions of online art therapy in June.

We also have been hosting online sessions for our psychological support group with the last session finished last week (total of 10). We received a lot of positive testimonials and hope we’ll be able to start a new course to help more people.

Moreover, we are hosting live sessions with different doctors and psychologists and those sessions are dedicated to different topics. For example, 3 weeks ago we had a live session with a Dietitian who shared advice and tips on eating habits during treatments. During the same week we had a live talk with Oncologist/Radiologist talking about differences among various treatments. We normally have over 50 people attending live sessions and they are announced through our Instagram account. All recordings are available on our YouTube channel and we are happy to share the link to our channel in this newsletter. It has over 15 recordings of live sessions already!

Links:

• YouTube channel of our Fund

Thanks to everyone who donated to our cause and the fund. We are thrilled to let you know the number of amazing events we were able to host over the last three months. It was all possible thanks to all of your generous donations.

1. Art-therapy - hosted 3 sessions in February
2. Psychological game developed by Psychologist Olga Vorobeva, who went through oncology herself. This event is becoming very popular and is demanded now in other cities of Russia. So far we’ve conducted it in Moscow and Yaroslavl. We plan to host this game in other cities over 2020.
3. Photo session - hosted 5 across different cities: Ekaterinburg, Volgodonsk, Magnitogorsk, Novokuznetsk, Tyumen

It is also our honor to let you know that project "I Love Life" was nominated as the best non-profit project by the award "Let's live!". The event was hosted in Kremlin on February 1st and we are happy to share the video link in this newsletter.

As the International Women’s Day is approaching, we are already preparing celebrations in a few oncology in-patient clinics (Moscow and Yaroslavl) to support women (and men!) who are going through a battle with cancer. We’ll be sharing additional details and pictures soon!

As part of our merger with the project “I Love Life”, please expect some changes to our project page on GlobalGiving. We will be changing the name of the fund to “I Love Life”, the logo, as well as our website domain and appearance (just a bit).

Thank you all for your support!

Liza Aktas

Board Member

Links:

• Award in Kremlin

We are excited to announce a merger of two programs under the umbrella of our charity fund. The program “I Love Life” is doing an array of events providing psychological support to oncology patients. We’ll be now supporting photomarathon, which already took place in 35 cities across Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. At this point hundreds of women participated and shared their stories of battling cancer. We are conducting 2 more in December and 2 more in January. 

As part of the program “With You” we are launching art-therapy course in January consisting of 10 classes, where we’ll be able to help 10 patients. We will also be opening a psychological support group in February, which will run on a weekly basis. Photo reports are coming!

Thank you all again for your help!! It all wouldn’t be possible without you!

This summer we conducted two photopicnics for cancer patients and their families! This was only possible thanks to your generous donations. 

First photopicnic took place in the Moscow Oncology Clinic #4 in July. We had 10 people attending, where two photographers and two make up artists did an amazing job and created a wonderful atmosphere for our ladies. The head of the clinic and a few doctors joined us for tea outside, where we all enjoyed the beautiful weather and a relaxing time.

Our second photopicnic took place in the famous Gorky Park in Moscow and was attended by 25 people! Summer in Moscow was cold this year, so everyone really enjoyed the beautiful weather on the last summer day of August 31st. We posted lots of videos and photos on social media, which we are happy to share in this report as well. We had Sergey Fedorov, a cancer survivor and an author, sharing his books at the event. His book was about his journey of survival. 

We are very grateful for your support! Next, we are planning to launch art therapy classes in November-December 2019 as well as yoga and meditation classes for cancer patients. Given our success with photopicnics and a high demand, we may conduct another picnic in September if the weather permits.

Thanks a lot!

Liza Aktas