A grant from Lincoln’s Downtown Rotary 14 is helping Ukrainian school students maintain their studies as they take to bomb shelters, move away from the war zone or stay at home during the war with Russia.
Through a connection between Rotary 14 and the Rotary Club in Kharkiv, Ukraine a $1,000 grant is being used to purchase used laptop computers so the students can participate in their education online. Rotarians in Ukraine collected 20,000 applications from families in Eastern Ukraine, where the Russian invasion is most intense.
Those families do not have laptops or tablets so their children can continue their education. “The war with Russia is not only taking lives and destroying parts of our country,” says Rotarian Sergii Savitskiy, “It is also causing great damage to the future of our country by interfering with the education of our children.” Sergii and members of his club have reached out to Rotary Clubs around the world seeking help to provide the laptops.
Randy Bretz is past president of Downtown Rotary 14 and says he began having conversations with Savitskiy several years ago. “Sergii and I met in 2018 when we were both presidents of our respective clubs,” Bretz says. “At the time, our focus was helping people in remote villages in South America get electricity. But, after Russia invaded Ukraine, our focus shifted to helping people there.”
Bretz helped prepare a grant request to the Rotary 14 Foundation which resulted in $1,000 being sent to the club in Kharkiv. “This is a real testimony to the capability of helping people through Rotary connections,” Bretz says.
To date, a dozen Rotary clubs in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and South America have helped with grants to the club in Kharkiv. “We have purchased and distributed nearly 5,000 laptops to children so they may continue their education,” Savitskiy says. “We deeply appreciate the help we’ve received from Lincoln’s Rotary 14.”
A video with an interview with Savitskiy gives additional detail about the project: https://youtu.be/nCpXOI4-CQI?si=iI0zslHASFxwP1as
