In Western Europe and the United States, up to 90% of children diagnosed with cancer survive. In Russia, however, a child with diagnosed cancer is 3 times more likely to die.
This cause is personal — my parents are from Russia, as are my grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I still have family members there, and I want to know that they have access to the same quality of healthcare that I do in the US.
It’s important to emphasize how many Hermiona team members have a personal connection to Russia and, consequently, feel similarly: Yelena Kadeykina, our CEO, and Andrey Shlyakhter, one of our Directors of Education, were born in Russia; many of our educational consultants and tutors (David Lysenko, Taylor Chin, Nadia Stryuk, Danya Levy, Polina Ivanova, and myself, to name only a few) have lived there for various periods of time; and Julia Barr, our other Director of Education has taught Russian history at many American universities.
Hermiona’s mission is to help children achieve their dreams through education. Naturally, in our day-to-day work, this involves providing academic support, preparing for tests, advising students on admissions essays, helping to find extracurriculars, or finding summer programs — but that doesn’t mean that that’s all we do. We know that helping children means giving them a chance to get the best education — which also means giving them a chance at life.
We are excited to be supporting the NGO Podari.Life which funds pediatric cancer treatment and research throughout Russia and other Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan and Belarus. Their projects give children from the countries that we’ve lived in (and whose languages we speak) a chance to live, thrive, and grow. We’ve supported Podari.Life in the past — and doing so has made a concrete change in children’s lives. We are excited to do so again.
We will be fundraising for Podari.Life by running our new initiative - Education Global Open House. The plan is to offer exclusive mentorship opportunities to individuals around the world with the hope that they will feel compelled to donate to Podari.Life for our services. 100% of the proceeds will go their efforts. While we are offering our services for free, they normally cost $200/hour: those who benefit from them in our Education Global Open House will also have the chance to do good by donating to support children with cancer.
Our entire team looks forward to interacting with you through this initiative. You’ll not only have the chance to advance your academic and professional career, but also to give children with cancer the chance to do so in the future.