UPD: At the request of the applicant of the fundraising campaign For support for the shelter in Warsaw, the remaining funds in the amount of €78 have been redirected to the fundraising campaign For dental care for volunteer veterans.
A large number of volunteer veterans are forced to leave Ukraine quickly after completing their service due to issues with documents and legalization — many had their passports expire during service, and some already have families in Europe, as they were forced to leave Belarus due to persecution.
War leaves marks that are not always visible at first glance. For Belarusian volunteers who defended Ukraine, returning to peaceful life becomes a new battlefield. Forced emigration, loss of documents, and language barriers are compounded by health problems. Dental issues among veterans stand apart: they are not covered by insurance and become an unsolvable problem for these people.
Why is this critically important?
While spending most of their time in combat positions, volunteers do not have the opportunity to maintain proper dental hygiene. When you spend long periods in a trench, eating primitive, monotonous food that is available, without vitamins and nutrients — bone tissue is irreversibly destroyed. There is probably no need to explain how dental diseases affect overall health. And what unbearable pain a person experiences when they have toothache.
For young men who have gone through the hell of war, dental problems are not a matter of aesthetics. It is:
- Constant physical pain that exhausts the psyche more than any battle
- Stomach problems, such as the inability to properly chew food, can destroy the body from within
- Social isolation. It is difficult to look for a job and build a future when you are ashamed to speak or smile
At the moment, there are no dedicated medical programs to support volunteer veterans. And the cost of dental care in both Poland and Lithuania is unaffordable for a person without a stable income. Therefore, our initiative KUS is launching an important fundraiser: we are raising funds for complex dental treatment for 26 Belarusian veterans currently in Lithuania and Poland.
What will the funds be used for?
A survey of 40 veterans showed that 2/3 of them require urgent and expensive interventions, including dental and root canal treatment, crowns, and implantation. The total need of the group exceeds €100,000. We are starting with a fundraiser of €10,000 for the most urgent and severe cases.
How can you help?
We understand that the amounts are huge. But we cannot leave our heroes alone with pain. We will use the funds as they come in to begin treatment for those in the most critical condition right now.
Your donation is:
- An opportunity for a veteran to live without pain
- A chance for successful integration in a new country
- A simple human smile that the war tried to take away
Please support those who sacrificed everything for our freedom. Every euro matters!
Fundraising goal
€10,000