Niya Nikel, the founder of the beauty salon and hair dye brand, and MIM-Kyiv CBMS program student has been volunteering for more than half a year. No wonder she became the Head of PR at the Children of Heroes Charitable Fund. It is in line with her pre-war charitable activities aimed at delivering medicines to children with epilepsy.

“HR director of the Fund contacted me through LinkedIn because of my skills. Before the war, I had a PR agency that ran educational and social projects. The Fund’s activity reflects what we are doing now: struggling for a better future for our children. We have to share the responsibility for the future of children whose parents died because they resisted the invaders. Besides, I have experience in the area. I used to participate in the task force developing the policies for orphanages. I believe that we need only family-type orphanages. The social system sometimes is harsh on the families that made mistakes and they take children from those families. However, I think that we‘d better help those families to live through the hard times,” Nia Nikel explains.

“Children of Heroes” are taking care of nearly half a thousand children, some of them are Bucha and Mariupol survivors. Some of them have only one parent and all of them are homeless. The Fund is doing their best to help those children adapt to normal life. At this point, school is a top priority. Thus, the Fund is looking for the gadgets necessary to renew online classes.

“Displaced children cannot go to school offline, and they do not have tablets or laptops to join online classes. Education is critical for children. So, we are raising money and gadgets. We ask businesses to give us the equipment they do not use. Some children are here, in Ukraine and some are abroad. Those who abroad also need our support because the charities there are overwhelmed. We are very short of time because the academic year starts on September 1,” Nia tells us.

Nia’s beauty business is slower now. Because of the curfew, the salon does not work at its full capacity. It is also difficult to scale hair dye manufacturing.

“When I was studying at MIM-Kyiv I could develop my product in Brussels but at that point, I decided not to. I thought it was too long and took too much effort. Then the war erupted, and I concentrated on humanitarian issues. My hair dye business is now at the turning point. To grow it I need to launch mass production, but it is practically impossible because nobody would invest in new beauty product manufacturing in Ukraine. It is too expensive to outsource it to Europe and too many barriers to outsourcing it to China. Probably making the dye is my next step,” Nia tells us about her business.

So far, she invests in bringing our victory closer and in supporting children.

You can help by donating your used gadgets that could be used for schooling. For more detail please visit https://www.childrenofheroes.com