From Heart to Heart. Svitlana Panaiotidi

Svitlana Panaiotidi is a former Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, mother of a son and stepmother of three daughters, and a philanthropist who since 2016 has been launching initiatives in support of projects on the dobro.ua platform and dedicating her birthdays to charity.

Every year about 3,500 children in Ukraine are born with congenital heart defects. For many of them, life begins with a struggle: the heart implants and operations that could change their fate are very expensive. A single implant can cost up to UAH 150,000, an overwhelming sum for an ordinary Ukrainian family.

That is why for more than 12 years the dobro.ua platform, in partnership with the Future Hearts Charity Foundation, supported the national programme “Save a Little Heart”, which aims to bring caring people and companies together around the problem and support children with congenital heart defects. Svitlana has been part of this project since 2016 and does everything she can to save more children. Thanks to Svitlana's like-minded supporters, more than a hundred children from all over Ukraine who needed heart surgery have been saved. The dobro.ua platform has stopped operating, but the good it started goes on.

So Svitlana keeps coming up with and running fundraisers for other socially important charitable projects.

In this special section we have gathered all the children saved thanks to Svitlana.