2021 was a fruitful year for the Charity Organization "Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya". In fact, we have a reason to claim this in the end of about every year of the Committee's activity, because our work and cooperation with our partners is always a movement, action, and projects aimed at results.

In 2020, it became clear that the force majeure circumstances in which the whole world found itself did not spoil, but slightly adjusted our plans. Therefore, we approached the new year considering the previous experience. And here is the brief overview on what we have as a result.

We started the new year with constructive plans for cooperation with the Vilshany Children Orphanage. During the year, master classes were held at the institution with the involvement of domestic and foreign specialists. Physiotherapists worked with our inhabitants, and technicians helped with the individual adjustment of the equipment. This year, a social project launched in Vilshany, was aimed at implementing a wide range of options for supporting daytime employment and employment for people with disabilities. We are working on the development of an online store with the products of our talented inhabitants. The inclusive cafe-shop "Kosytsya" will also be opened. Here, as Nadiya Danch, project coordinator of the CO "CAMZ", notes, they will focus on the interaction of the residents of the institution with the local population, the integration of the potential of young people with disabilities into the everyday life of community. A greenhouse will be built for the development of agricultural employment, and the vegetables grown in it will be available for everyone to purchase in the new store. Successes of our inhabitants inspire us with new ideas – this is how new workshops, circles, forms of creativity and employment are created.

It was a fruitful year for the Parasolka Social Abilitation and Rehabilitation Center, where a new unit for social services provision, primarily day care for children and persons with disabilities, was opened in June. And by the end of the year, "Parasolka" has become the home of the Training and Resource Center, which is scheduled to host training and professional discussions on reforming the social sphere in 2022. In fact, within a year, an institution with a wide range of functions, where both persons with disabilities and those who provide them with qualified support, "grew up" from the newly built walls.

The educational component of our activity was extremely productive. In the summer, based on Uzhhorod National University, with the participation of domestic and foreign experts, professional discussions were held on new approaches to conducting introductory and educational practice for students who master the areas of special education, physical and occupational therapy. At the initiative of the Charitable Organization "Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya", the issue of involving the Vilshany Children Orphanage and the "Parasolka" Centre as the practice bases has been raised again. More than 20 students of the indicated specialties and their teachers visited already the institutions with a familiarization visit in October. We initiated the development of plans for educational and practical courses by Swiss specialists, and in the autumn the developed methods were already tested in the framework of lectures and practical classes by colleagues from Switzerland for higher education students at UzhNU.

Our personal achievement is a systematic improvement of our own professional training. This year the director of the CO "Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya" Nataliya Kabatsiy and Committee's project coordinator Lesya Levko obtained higher education in the specialty "Public Health" and received master's degrees with honours.

Traditionally, the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya has become a bridge to implement progressive foreign experience for the integration of support and assistance to persons with disabilities into domestic practices. During the year, our Swiss partners have worked with the clients of the Transcarpathian Regional Children Sanatorium "Malyatko", the Vilshany Children Orphanage, the Social Abilitation and Rehabilitation Centre "Parasolka" and consulted colleagues from Zakarpattya. We would also like to highlight the achievements in the initiation of cooperation between the Faculty of Health and Physical Education of UzhNU and the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW regarding the experience exchange on work and cooperation of universities with employers, the creation of the Council of Employers, and the involvement of the latter in the formation of educational process and education content.

The offline general meeting of the "Parasolka" Association, which took place in Switzerland after the Covid break, became an important event for our organization. Colleagues communicated directly in social institutions having a positive experience of an effective work and are being ready to share it with interested institutions. Subsequently, the presidium of the "Parasolka" Association met in Zakarpattya with the participation of Swiss partners. It was emphasized once again that the areas of joint activities of the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya remain unchanged – social and legal protection of citizens, strengthening the rehabilitation and educational component, informing the population and improving the qualifications and awareness of specialists involved in the field of assistance to vulnerable groups of society. The same principles were included to the tripartite agreement on partnership and cooperation, which was signed this year by the Department of Social Protection of the Population of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration, the Parasolka Association, and our charitable organization.

The efficiency of the Committee is also measured by its role in the development of a regulatory framework to ensure and guarantee human rights as a fundamental principle of a state’s functioning. Thus, Eugenia Melesh, the lawyer of the CO "CAMZ", prepared an analytical note on the draft law "On providing protection to foreigners and stateless persons". Important theses were also voiced by members of the organization within the framework of the International Day for the Protection of Women's Rights and Peace, during joint events with the Centre for Gender Education at the Uzhhorod National University, the Association of Women Lawyers "YurFem" and the Human Rights Department of the National Police of Ukraine, a round table on aspects of social development in Ukraine, all-Ukrainian conference on deinstitutionalization. In August, CO "CAMZ" became a co-organizer of the first "Resource Mama" summer school in Zakarpattya.

This year, the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya shared a lot of its experience within all-Ukrainian forums, answered questions about ideas and ways of their implementation, about internal resources that allow us to work systematically, respond to modern challenges, interact with state and public institutions, and jointly solve humanitarian issues and strategic tasks. We hope that our experience will play an important role in the consolidation of specialists in social protection and all related areas.

"We are happy to end the year on a high note. As a team, together with our friends and partners, we managed to realize everything we planned, and even a little more. We have many plans and many projects that we have been supporting for many years. Taken together, this is the content and meaning of the activity of the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya. We believe that an equally successful year is ahead. And this faith is strengthened by the fact that, we carry out socially important and popular activities together with domestic and foreign colleagues who share our values and move in the same direction", - stressed the director of CO "CAMZ" Nataliya Kabatsiy.