It was not at all pleasant sailing across the channel courtesy of storm Gareth blowing a force 9 on our way to Ukraine a couple of weeks ago. Luckily no one was sick.

Whilst at the Centre we were told that the Customs had been recently with a couple of officials and had wanted to see our paperwork for the last 2 years. After inspection they were so impressed saying our documents were “second to none” that they asked to come back to the centre at a later date to learn how we did it so that they can roll the system out nationally for all humanitarian aid coming unto Ukraine.

Vitaly was thrilled to receive his latest electric wheelchair kindly donated by Mrs Chris Lee. His mother was so grateful and was in tears. He had been sitting motionless for months as his previous chair wouldn’t work and couldn’t be repaired.

Another person we have been involved with over the years is Nastia who is also wheelchair bound, but, as we have reported previously, she had learned to ballroom dance in her chair. Felsted Prep School very kindly supplied her with a custom made lightweight wheelchair. This has enabled her to now compete at a national level at a biathlon in skiing and shooting receiving 2 gold and 1 silver medal. She is now training for the olympics.

Annya, one of the first patients at the Revival Centre in 1996 who has never spoken or walked due to being born with cerebral palsy is now composing poetry and has her own art exhibition. She was assessed as unteachable by several teachers as a toddler, but she was brought up by an angel in the form of her Granny and unknown to everyone she taught her to spell. This was not discovered until after Granny’s death and it was only because we were given a brand new laptop, literally as we were leaving our house for a trip, which we gave to Annya that it came to light. Her mother came to us the next morning as we were having breakfast in tears saying “you have no idea what you’ve just done”! It opened up the world for her.

Jan Hancock, one of our drivers, has kindly sponsored a little girl with badly deformed legs to have an operation to straighten them. The operation has been successful and she is at the Revival Centre having rehabilitation. Jan gave us an envelope with some money for her Granny to purchase her first pair of shoes as she had promised the little girl.