The war showed that regardless of the field of activity, physical and financial capabilities, each of the Ukrainians can successfully do a lot for the common Victory.
The "Native Shore" Foundation, co-founded by politician, scientist and artist Mykhailo Pozhivanov, helps soldiers and people who were forced to leave their homes due to rocket and bomb attacks.
"The main activity of the fund is primarily to help our military, and not only with food products. This is both the uniform and the equipment they need - we always respond to the requests of the military. We also closely cooperate with the leadership of the naval forces of Ukraine, Admiral Neizhpapa, his deputies, unit commanders, etc.," said Mykhailo Pozhivanov, who currently heads the Batkivshchyna city office in Odesa.
In addition, he notes, People's Artist of Ukraine Vera Revenko helps the foundation's work:
"Vira Oleksiivna takes a significant part in our work - in addition to helping the needy, she performs charity concerts in fact on the very front line - in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. She is a very courageous woman."
The artist herself says that she could not stand aside when great grief came to our land.
"Each of us has our own weapon: my weapon is not machine guns, but my voice and songs. I have been singing to our defenders since the first days of the war in different parts of our country. I see the eyes of poor doctors who sleep only one and a half hours a day, I see the eyes of our boys and girls who fight instead of giving birth to children. It's just very scary and it's a grief that united all of us in the country. Therefore, today artists, like all citizens of our country, cannot behave differently. In addition, I have been a member of the Batkivshchyna party for twenty years, and there we are all a big family that serves the Ukrainian people all our lives. And these are not pathetic words, but a true call of the soul."
In turn, Mykhailo Pozhivanov notes that today each citizen can help his native country in his place:
"According to my age and experience, I am more useful in the scope of charity and volunteer work, assistance to the Armed Forces; Vira Oleksiivna does what she knows very professionally, someone helps the country in one or another production, and one of our friends and relatives is on the front lines today. That is, each of us is making efforts so that we can win as soon as possible."
Moreover, the peculiarity of the charity hub "Odesa Batkivshchyna" is that it is built on the basis of the "Batkivshchyna" party organization.
As Mykhailo Pozhivanov admits, when the process was just beginning, he did not even believe that soon benefactors would be able to send such a large amount of aid to everyone who needs it every week.
"I am proud of the fact that I proposed to create a hub on the party structure. And although they reproached me that we would be accused of PR, I always answered that this would not happen. After all, no one needs PR today, there won't be any elections at the moment, especially during martial law, but when you use a powerful party structure, it's really great.
Because other charitable organizations have a lot of organizational problems: even if you have goods and need help, you need to find where to put it all, where to sort it, who will transport it and where to get a car...
I believe that our great achievement is that our party structure, with the support of our leader Yulia Tymoshenko, is practically the only one in Ukraine that works in all regions of our country," Mykhailo Pozhivanov emphasized.
