Representatives of BDO in Ukraine attended UNITED24 Summit

We remind you that UNITED24 is an initiative of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a fundraising platform that was established on May 5, 2022 to raise funds to support Ukraine. Last December, BDO in Ukraine and U24 Platform signed a partnership agreement and we, in turn, provided assistance to one of the educational institutions in Kherson after the de-occupation of the region.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened the event with a speech summarising the platform's annual activities. The President shared that over the year, the platform received $325 million in donations from representatives of 110 countries that support UNITED24. 15 ambassadors have joined the project, including well-known Ukrainian athletes Andrii Shevchenko, Oleksandr Usyk and Elina Svitolina, singer Barbra Streisand and the Imagine Dragons, actors Liev Schreiber and Katherine Winnick, astronaut Scott Kelly and billionaire Richard Branson. Over the year of its operation, the platform has gained the support of 100+ partners. The world sent donations for hundreds of types of drones, more than 100,000 items of medical equipment and hundreds of generators for hospitals were purchased. Thanks to UNITED24, Ukraine's reconstruction has already begun. Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked everyone who helps to keep the world's attention on Ukraine at a time when the topic of Ukraine is beginning to fade into the background. He also announced 2 new areas for the fundraising in addition to the existing 3 (defence, medicine, and rebuilding of Ukraine). These areas are humanitarian demining and education and science.

To allay the fears of some organisations that all the funds received will be used for defence purposes, each area has a separate account linked to the relevant Ministry. For example, humanitarian demining is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economy, while donations for education and science will be transferred to the account of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Why these areas?

Currently, about 170,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian land are considered potentially contaminated and require non-technical surveys to identify localised threats. This is an area larger than some countries in the world. And Ukraine has only 10 demining vehicles and about 2,000 sappers, which is not enough given the area and the desire to return security to these territories as soon as possible. Therefore, we have ambitious plans to raise funds for the purchase of equipment in 2023: 460+ units for the transportation of personnel, 250+ units for the transportation of EO and 80+ demining vehicles. Additionally, we need to train 4,700+ specialists. The first ambassador of humanitarian demining is philosopher Francis Fukuyama, who will help raise funds for demining vehicles and equipment.

The education and science sector also requires special attention. According to the Minister of Education and Science, Oksen Lisovyi, since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 454 schools have been completely destroyed, and 2,772 educational institutions have been damaged to a different degree. In addition, both students and teachers have insufficient technical equipment to ensure proper access to the learning process, which every Ukrainian child has the right to. Therefore, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and the country's primary focus on defence, the needs of education cannot be ignored. Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Paul Nurse, neurophysiologists Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser, and Ukrainian-American actress Ivanna Sakhno will be in charge of this area.

“People realised what Ukraine is capable of. People realised what unity can do,” — the President said.

At the Summit, Minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov explained how they managed to raise funds and what they spent them on. For example, donations were received from people of completely different ages and in different amounts. “We once received a letter from a 79-year-old woman who had donated 10 euros for defence and was worried whether we had received it”, says Mykhailo Fedorov with a sincere smile. Among the most outstanding projects, he noted:

• fundraising for the Army of Drones, which made it possible to contract 3,829 UAVs/UAV systems,
• raising for 20 personalised drones amounted to UAH 500+ million,
• 100 thousand bracelets made of the last steel produced by Azovstal, which were sold to 44 countries for UAH 300 million,
• 100 thousand packs of "Mitz" salt were sold for UAH 58.5 million.

U24 partners also spoke at the event about their unique experience of helping Ukraine. Among them were Uber's Head of International Affairs Matthew Devlin, The Temerty Foundation's Director of Humanitarian Initiatives Christina Valer, And Us Agency's Executive and Creative Director Jamie Kennaway, monobank co-founder Oleh Gorokhovsky, volunteer Ihor Lachenkov, and Lithuanian journalist Andrius Tapinas.

UNITED24 team is doing an extraordinary job to help Ukraine win this war. And the main thing that everyone says is that we need to talk about Ukraine even more, because only storytelling helps to raise millions of dollars for the fight and reconstruction.

Everyone can help. So join the common goal, share information with your friends abroad and remember that there are no small donations. Learn more at u24.gov.ua.