In May of 2014, the World Ice Hockey Championship was held in Belarus. In sight of this worldwide known competition, UNHCR Belarus organized a fundraising event to benefit 800 refugees in Belarus. The planning and preparation of this successful event took around 6 months. It required a number of meetings and close cooperation with more than 10 embassies and Ice Hockey Federations of the teams that participated in the Championship: Belarus, Russia, Latvia, Canada, the United States of America, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Kazakhstan, Italy, and France. Generous contributions, kind donations and assistance of the diplomatic community to collect the hockey items for the auction helped to raise funds for the refugee children in Belarus. World Ice Hockey Championship became essential part not only in the life of Belarusians but also helped to make the lives of the refugees in Belarus better.
The Belarusian celebrities and sportsmen strongly supported the charity auction. During the evening Iskui Abalyan, UNHCR Supporter in Belarus, and Teo, a famous Belarusian singer and finalist at the Eurovision contest 2014, performed pro-bono their most famous songs. The event also received wholehearted support from Anton Kushnir and Alla Tsuper, Belarusian aerial skiers and gold medalists of the Winter Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi, who participated in the fundraising as well.
The charity auction received wide media coverage. To raise awareness of the vulnerable state of the refugee children, Mr. Jean-Yves Bouchardy gave interviews to two main TV channels in Belarus — ONT and Belarus 1 — and TV Channel that exclusively broadcasts on the territory of all CIS countries — Mir Channel. Channel Belarus 1 featured the interview on the significance of the charity event for the refugees during the morning news report.
It was the first of such events in Belarus. Around 100 people attended the event including 20 representatives of the Diplomatic Community, UNHCR partners and the representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Department of Citizenship and Migration as well as key players in the private sector of Belarus. UNHCR Belarus is deeply engaging into partnership with the privately owned enterprises. As a result, Velcom, one of the leading GSM-operators in the Republic of Belarus providing telecommunication services, worldwide known Bosch Company, and Priorbank actively participated by making significant contributions. Moreover, Velcom kindly donated five tablets with three years of free internet service to five university refugee students from Georgia and Afghanistan further reiterating their commitment to UNHCR work in Belarus.
All the proceeds of the auction go to the fund that benefits vulnerable groups of children — refugee children. The generous biddings allowed UNHCR Belarus to raise more than 20 thousand dollars, which is equivalent to 50 thousand dollars that could have been raised elsewhere, due to the challenges that fundraising is facing in most of the post-soviet countries.