My name is Kiryl, I am a designer and I lived in Poland for over 10 years. In 2020, I returned to Belarus – after my mother’s sudden death I wanted to be close to my father, to help him, to support him somehow. During the 2020 election campaign, I joined civic initiatives, believing that change was possible.
In December 2021 they came to my home with a search warrant. The standard story: at 7 am the doorbell rang, then knocks on the door, “astronauts” in the peephole. They stormed into the apartment over a case I had nothing to do with. They found a white-red-white flag, and after checking my phone they found subscriptions to extremist materials on Telegram. Then they took me to the police department, drew up a protocol and sent me to a temporary detention facility for several days. After living in Poland I had got so used to normal treatment of citizens that the interrogations, threats and the “days” in the temporary detention facility are something I still cannot forget.
Right after being released, fearing further persecution, I left for Poland again. I tried to start over – find a job, live, recover. But a new wave of challenges began. For a long time I couldn’t find stable work: I completed test tasks, got to final interview stages, and then – silence. In the end, for over half a year, I survived on small freelance jobs.
Because of my mother’s death, what I went through in the temporary detention facility, repeated emigration and the struggle to find work, I developed mental health problems. Diagnosis – moderate depression and PTSD. All my last money went on a psychotherapist and medication, and even that was barely enough to live on, so I had to borrow money from acquaintances and friends. Therapy and antidepressants helped – it got easier, and finally I began to function normally again.
Since childhood, I have had a hearing problem – one ear doesn’t hear. It never really bothered me before, but now I have ringing in my healthy ear, especially during stressful periods. My doctor said I need to undergo examinations and have an MRI scan. I don’t have the funds for this.
For the last few years I have held on and tried to manage everything alone: debts, treatment, moving. But now I have exhausted all my resources, both moral and financial. I am not asking for much – only for the possibility to continue examinations and not lose my hearing completely.
Fundraising Goal
€2400
€1400 – hearing examinations (audiogram (pure tone threshold audiometry) and tests, MRI of the temporal bone and brain with contrast, consultations with an ENT specialist (at least 3), electrocochleography or BERA (auditory nerve examination), CT scan (if necessary))
€1000 – accumulated debts which piled up while I was unemployed but paying for psychiatrist consultations, antidepressants and psychotherapy