“Every year, we renovate an ambulatory in the Kiew area. Every year, we fly to Kiew to have an amazing time with our partner club Kiew Center. Every year, we have the opportunity to grasp a glimpse at a world that we would otherwise never see. This picture shows a doctor responsible for 1200 inhabitants of a Ukrainian village. The morning of our visit, he got up early before work to catch a fish to make us the most delicious fish soup that I (personally) have ever tasted. He cares for people that live in houses that don’t have windows. He cares for people that don’t have the opportunity to go to a hospital by car, because they can’t afford cars. He cares for people who give you the feeling of being at home in a place that couldn’t be more different from your own. In the place that he works in, the floors and ceilings are broken. Pretty much everything is broken or looks like it isn’t supposed to be used anymore. That doesn’t keep him, a trained physician, from doing his everything to keep his village healthy. 

I know that it’s impossible to transfer the feelings and impressions that we were able to gather today, drenched in hospitality and anthropology that you don’t experience everyday. But it breaks my heart to see how EASY it is to buy some medical equipment for a couple hundred euros to provide 1200 Ukrainian inhabitants with safe and reliable medical equipment for multiple years to come, and how seldomly we use the opportunity to enrichen ourselves with the feeling of fulfilment one gets when they see true and honest happiness in somebody’s eyes. In this picture, the doctor is crying out of happiness. It was our honour and pleasure to get to know new amazing people and make new friends. It was our honour being able to do a small percentage of our part in making a couple of lives easier. It was our honour getting to know you. Thank you for an amazing meal, for a (liquor drenched) afternoon and for grounding each and every one of us once again, making us realise that materialism is not the key to happiness and content.” – Sophia Maria Kramer