Belarusian woman asks for help with treatment of 12-year-old daughter

My daugh­ter Masha and I fled Belarus on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2020, when she was only 7 years old. Her new life began in Ukraine. There were friends, school, lan­guage, habits — she became attached to this coun­try with all her heart. When a full-scale war began in 2022, we stayed, we did not leave. On the first day, we took refuge in a cel­lar in Vorzel near Kiev, under shelling, then returned to Kyiv: anx­i­ety, sleep­less nights and con­stant fear became part of our life.

Against the back­ground of stress and rapid growth — Masha has grown by 20 cen­time­tres in a year and is now taller than me — she began to devel­op cur­va­ture of the feet. At first, she sim­ply began to walk on her toes. Then it became clear that she could not stand on her heels — she fell back­wards. The mus­cles and ten­dons were not stretched, she needs to do spe­cial exer­cis­es and under­go pro­ce­dures every day, oth­er­wise the sit­u­a­tion will get worse.

In Kyiv, reha­bil­i­ta­tion is now almost impos­si­ble: most med­ical insti­tu­tions work only for the mil­i­tary. That’s why we came to Poland specif­i­cal­ly to treat Masha. The doc­tors here con­firmed: surgery is not nec­es­sary, the bones are fine, but long-term work with the mus­cles will be required — dai­ly stretch­ing, mas­sage, exer­cise ther­a­py. Accord­ing to the insur­ance, we were put on the wait­ing list only for July-August. But Masha can­not wait that long — dur­ing these months, the prob­lem may become irre­versible.

We are now in Poland and plan to stay here for at least 2.5 months. I will go to Kyiv: I con­tin­ue to work and help. Masha is study­ing remote­ly at a Ukrain­ian school. This is essen­tial­ly a health trip, but a lot depends on its out­come.

I ask you to sup­port my daugh­ter. It is hard for me to ask, but it is even hard­er to see how she can­not stand and walk nor­mal­ly. Thank you to every­one who did not stand aside. Thank you for your sup­port. Long live Belarus!

Help Masha

How much is need­ed? €4000

€1600 – reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­ce­dures (mas­sage, stretch­ing, exer­cise ther­a­py, 2,5 months)
€1200 – rent
€800 – food and house­hold needs
€400 – trav­el and admin­is­tra­tive expens­es