In March 2022, along with my partner Evgeniy Gusarov and a team of over 80 volunteers, we built a platform to provide and search for free housing for internally displaced poeple - Dopomagai.org (or Safemanor.org for the English speaking audience). Read about how we built this service in a separate article.
While building Dopomagai, we conducted a large demographic study of displaced families (you can read about the results here). Behind the struggles and problems faced by the displaced parents, we have found other heroes who needed help – we’ve found the children. We also witnessed a major demographic collapse looming over Ukraine, threatening our future.
This issue intrigued us, and we delved deeper into it, eventually leading to the creation of a new social startup – Humancreed.com.
Humancreed is a mobile application that connects conscious Ukrainians – actually us – with children in need to provide them with direct targeted stipend for education and extracurricular development, follow the progress of the children under their care, and transparently view all expenses. It is an alternative social tax – without intermediaries and corruption, but with a great mission to raise a new generation of Ukrainians who believe in humanity, humaneness, and society.
Over 13,000 displaced children have already registered for the project. As of mid-March 2023, more than 300 sponsors are funding 120+ children, and our goal is to find sponsors for every child. Teams from Wix.com, Yola.com, Clario.co, Avitar.Legal, and others have already joined the project. We are looking for new teams of conscious ukrainians to join our faith in Ukraine's future – the Humancreed project. You can join by invitation – simply send an email to andrii@humancreed.com.
Learn more about the project by watching the online webinar on the IT Ukraine Association's YouTube channel.
Read on in this article for details about the demographic collapse in Ukraine and how the Humancreed project is fighting it.
Demographic collapse issue
Ukraine has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, and its population has decreased by 10 million over the last 30 years. At the beginning of 2022, there were 7.5 million children living in Ukraine.
Since then, more than 2.5 million children have moved abroad and enrolled in kindergartens and schools there. Most of them will never return. Our country has lost a third of its children, and with them – our future.
Another 2 million children are internally displaced.
Displaced parents have lost their homes, jobs, and sources of income. They have exhausted all their savings and are doing everything possible to survive. As all income is spent on basic needs such as housing, food, and medicine, parents are forced to deny their children other opportunities. So millions of little dancers, swimmers, chess players, and artists no longer attend sports clubs and art or music schools, do not study with tutors, the majority of them do not even have laptops for online learning.
Parents of displaced children have been forced to put their children's education and development on hold.
After losing a third of its children to emigration, Ukraine faces an extraordinary demographic collapse as it risks losing another third. The consequences of this will be felt very soon. Our universities will not have enough students, and entrance thresholds will drop even further. Young, talented employees will not join our companies. Ukrainians will compete under other countries' flags at the Olympic Games. Eventually, there will be no one left to pay taxes.
Our beloved country may follow the fate of Ireland – out of 80 million Irish people worldwide, only 8 million live in Ireland itself. I am confident that none of us want that for our country.
Ukraine's future is disappearing because the future of our nation – the children – is being lost.
However, we believe that our society can overcome this crisis, because we are a nation of brave, united, and talented people.
That’s why, after the Victory, in addition to rebuilding the country itself, we need to rebuild the future of our nation. The fewer children we have left, the more care, support, and opportunities our society must provide for each of them.
Members of our team, like every Ukrainian, are personally concerned about the possible consequences of the inevitable crisis, so we want to address the issue of Ukraine's future. We have decided to apply our engineering and product thinking to help society care for every child in the country. However, we start our journey by helping displaced children first.
How does Humancreed work?
Signing up to the platform, parents upload videos, photos, and text stories to introduce their children to the potential sponsors, showing their interests, and achievements. The platform helps establish the initial emotional connection between the children and sponsors.
During the matching session, sponsors select children and support them through a stipend subscription. Some sponsors choose champion children, some choose special kids, and some choose children with similar dreams. One child can be supported by one or multiple sponsors, so any contribution from a sponsor is important.
Currently, the stipend is transferred directly to the parents’ bank cards. Humancreed monitors that parents spend the funds according to the specified directions, and expense reports are available for sponsors to view.
Eventually, we plan to introduce our own virtual bank cards on the one hand, which will enable us to control and limit spending directions (similar to the California assistance program for the needy - CalFresh). On the other hand, we aim to build a marketplace of children's opportunities to pay directly to suppliers for services and products consumed by the children.
Why Humancreed and not government programs?
Humancreed, as a platform that provides direct targeted support to children, has several advantages:
- Transparency: Direct support from sponsors allows for better control over the use of funds. Humancreed ensures that parents spend the received funds according to specified directions, and expense reports are available for sponsors. This provides a high level of transparency and accountability.
- Minimizing corruption: With a direct connection between children and sponsors, funds bypass bureaucratic structures, reducing the risk of misuse or loss due to corruption schemes.
- Greater trust in society: Based on the principles of mutual aid and cooperation among citizens, Humancreed helps strengthen trust between people and society as a whole. Instead of relying on government programs or institutions, Ukrainians unite to provide support to those who need it most.
- Improving Ukraine's reputation: National and international observers can see how Ukrainian citizens take responsibility for helping their own children and developing their country, improving the nation's reputation in the eyes of the world and strengthening Ukrainians' trust in their new state.
How does Humancreed address the demographic issue?
Society must invest in children, as it is an investment in the country's future that benefits everyone. Investing in children's education and health provides them with opportunities for development and achieving their potential, increasing their chances of success in the future. Children who receive quality education and care usually become more productive members of society, able to contribute to economic development and innovation. Thus, investing in children is an investment in the future of society as a whole.
Humancreed has the potential to become a catalyst for the Ukrainian economic miracle. By providing children with access to extracurricular development and education, society increases the number of future talents and professionals who can drive Ukraine's economic growth, supported by Ukrainians themselves. Increasing the number of future doctors, scientists, artists, and other professionals will lead to growth in the country's GDP and contribute to the Ukrainian economic miracle.
How to join Humancreed?
Watch the video to learn more about the Humancreed app.
Currently, the project operates in closed mode. If you want to join Humancreed, simply write to me at andrii@humancreed.com.
