DIANA’S PROJECT“A CHILD’S SMILE MATTERS”

                                             Our 2016 together with all of you

• In 2016 were unexpected developments in Diana’s health situation: an operation was exchanged for long term medical treatment
• 2016 was the most active year in this short history of the project: with only 26 donors from around the world we collected around EUR 1,475.00 through betterplace and direct donations to TAA account
• This amount was used to pay 10  days of Diana's stay in the hospital, blood tests and various treatments 
• The month with the highest amount of donations was October 2016. Do you think it was Diana's birthday that helped it? :)
• Flowers and sweets were sent from Singapore to Diana on her B-Day and local flower shop from Minsk was involved in delivery. As a result, the Singaporean branch of JP Morgan Chase Bank updated the currency code of Belarusian rouble (due to changes in October 2016), which made the payment and delivery of the flowers possible. Which again means that we never know what we can actually influence!
• B-Day and greetings cards from around the world supported two strong ladies - Diana and her Mum Olga. 
• Donations came from the USA, all parts of Europe , Australia and Singapore – from all around the world 
• 40 kg of clothes, toys and sweets were collected for Diana and 4 parcels were sent from Germany and France so far.
• Diana smiled a bit more this year: the highlight was a Playmobile – a doll house gifted for her from France
• New helping sources were involved: German platform nebenan.de,the Facebook group "Free your stuff Frankfurt", which helps collecting clothes, toys and sweets for Diana. Several  members of this group donated items for the girl, which caused a new personal involvement into the project
• Free your stuff action was introduced with the idea to sell unused stuff through platforms like eBay and support Diana by doing this as well
• The new idea of #Flugpate was introduced and we are actively looking for people who are flying from Frankfurt in Germany to Minsk in Belarus and have got spare space in their luggage- in order to help us deliver the parcels free of charge.

 For more detailed information find the full report.

**********************************************************************************************************************


Our project to help 6-year old Diana, who was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer started in June 2015.  The purpose of the project is to support the little girl and her mother Olga,who is a single parent, in the fight against the disease. Diana and Olga live in Belarus but both of them are Ukrainian citizens, which makes it impossible to get any public health care for Diana's cancer treatment. 

When we started fundraising for the project, Diana's cancer relapsed the second time around. Thanks to the donations from all over the world made by people who haven't even met Diana, we collected  and transferred ca. 2000 EUR to the hospital in January 2016. This amount was used for numerous post-chemo treatments, blood tests and radiotherapy. You can see the breakdown of the expenses in the attached official documents provided by the hospital, however, these are only available in Russian. By February 2016 doctors reported the absence of tumor, so Diana could finally return to the normal life and enjoy the moments of her childhood!

Unfortunately, several months later in July 2016 Diana was diagnosed with a relapse for the third time since 2013, so she had to struggle for her life yet again. The 56mm tumor was located near the brain.
Usually, when tumor appears for the first time, the main treatment consists of chemo and radiotherapy, but if cancer relapses doctors consider other alternatives to stop it from growing, the best one being a surgery for tumor removal. In Diana's case it was going to be a really complicated surgery because the tumor is located really close to the brain, so not all of the available doctors could perform the surgery. However, Olga found a doctor who was ready to perform the surgery, but it would only be possible after several sessions of chemotherapy, when the tumor would shrank enough. Unfortunately the results of the chemo treatment in autumn 2016 were not positive.

Moreover, the tumor shrank in the wrong direction, and remained near the brain, making it impossible to perform the surgery. For this reason, the doctors had to look for other options once again. The solution for now is to continue chemotherapy and change to a new medicine called SUTENT. It is planned to have 3 cycles of this treatment in total, each one costing around 4500 USD.

If everything goes as planned by summer 2017 the treatment will be over. Good news is, one cycle of the SUTENT treatment will be financed by a Ukrainian charity organisation.  However Olga still needs a financial aid for around 9000$ for two more cycles of SUTENT.

Diana and Olga are hopefully approaching the end of their struggle and our support is really essential right now. When Diana was diagnosed with the tumor for the third time in July 2016, we had to start fundraising once again. We didn't let Olga down in her trouble and we managed to collect and transfer 1240 EUR by November 2016. This amount was used to pay 10  days of Diana's stay in the hospital, blood tests and various treatments (s. the official documentation provided by the hospital).

It is so important for Olga to know that she is not alone in her struggle and to feel that people care about her daughter!

Recently, we've decided to involve more people and thought of other ways to help, as we consider that people may support and participate in different ways. We want to show Diana that people care. Thanks to new ideas Diana could experience lots of moments of joy, her smile is one of our achievements in 2016.

In autumn 2016 we started collecting clothes, shoes and toys for the girl and since then we've involved lots of families in Germany and France , who were eager to help. Our colleagues, neighbours and even people we've never met before (thanks to the social networks) - everyone helped! Within  the last 4 months 4 parcels with clothing and toys were sent to Diana from Europe!

One of the newest ideas is to find a Flugpate - a person who is flying from Frankfurt in Germany to Minsk in Belarus and has got some spare space in the luggage- in order to help us deliver the parcels free of charge.

Another idea, which was introduced on the New Year's eve, is the concept of "Free your stuff" - which basically means selling things you no longer need and donating whatever you got from your sale.

For Diana's birthday in October 2016 we decided to send our greetings from all over the world. The girl was genuinely happy to get birthday cards from different people. THere was also a really special surprise for her birthday last year: she received a teddy bear and a box of chocolates sent by a kind family from Singapore. The employees of the Belorussian delivery service were so touched by Diana's case that they decided to participate in our project and added flowers and balloons to the gift!

As you can see, people may express their support in various ways and many things became possible thanks to our little steps. With our little actions we show Diana and Olga that we care. 

"Thanks to everyone who stays with us" these are the words of Olga adressed to all of you.