Baby Incubator 4Ukraine

Tameside Rotary have led the funding across the district for the Baby Incubator 4Ukraine, and we have reached our goal of £11,250.00, and the incubator was ordered and now arrived in Bury!

President Manhar Taylor and some of the Rotarian Incubator Team Angela Robbins, Cliff Hall and Peter Holden were invited to meet Wendy Warrington at her home in Bury (nurse and midwife) to see the incubator (which now proudly sports Tameside Rotary labels).

We were warmly welcomed by a very enthusiastic and energetic Wendy.

Whilst we were there, the team's voluntary driver Eddie  arrived and was loading the van for the imminent drive to Ukraine and a man called Josh Good who is a film-maker and has been out with them several times. It is the 21st baby incubator Wendy has taken out and Wendy’s 27th visit to the country. Wendy has a friend called Jakub who lived in the UK, then went to help on the Polish border volunteering his time distributing humanitarian aid at the start of the war. Since then, he has joined the First assault brigade and is a drone operator in the Dunetsk region. Jakub is getting a van for them in Ukraine.

Whilst on this trip, Eddie will drop donations of baby milk, toiletries and nappies to a safe house in the Korosten Zhytomir region for vulnerable displaced mothers and children with disabilities and also support thousands of displaced Ukrainians who settled there in the community. This particular aid being transported in the Xtrail is provided by Cardiff for Ukraine. The safe house was created by the Eleon Foundation.

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There is also a rucksack pack for Mum’s with various items (see photograph). Each rucksack has a pink or blue ribbon on the top to indicate the colour of the baby clothes if they are not neutral colours.

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Whitstable Rotary Club’s honorary member Tony Preston has organised several baby incubators to go to Ukraine in the same way as we will be doing now. Tony is the service project chair for  Ukraine Unity Rotary Club.

Another Rotarian mentioned by Wendy that we all know is Borys Bodnar, the charter president of the Rotary Club Ukraine Unity who she calls the ‘Big Cheese’. Wendy and Borys have worked together many times.

On Monday lunchtime, our baby incubator will be over the Ukraine border and making it’s way to No 7 City Hospital Kharkiv were there were 2000 births per year pre-war but now around 500 and increasing as people return. Viva from Suveren Foundation is leasing with the medical director Andriy. Wendy always makes sure the incubator and equipment get to the doctors and nurses and will go back to pay visits.

The number of babies born in Ukraine last year had started to go down as the mothers fled the country to safety, but the number of babies being born in Ukraine is now on the rise again as mothers return to their country.

We are very excited to have Wendy visit our club on her return to tell us all about her journey and ‘delivery’ and we invite all supporting rotary clubs and individuals to join us to listen to what will, no doubt be, an educational, uplifting and heroic story. We also invite Ashton Ukrainian Club members who have supported this project with their collection on their Independence Day event. Thank you to Angela Robbins for organising the Christmas Carol Service that AUGB-Ashton allowed us to hold at their venue. Thank you to Cliff Hall for completion of the grant applications. Thank you to Peter Holden for legally checking the contracts for signing. Our very grateful thanks to the grants we were awarded from Rotary District 1285 and the very supportive district team members. Thanks to Tameside Rotarian Amanda Reed-Raja and her clients for their anonymous and generous contributions. Thanks to Tameside Rotarians Andy Williams and Su Greaves for help with publicity an


Photos of the four rotarians are; From the left is Peter Holden who is our club secretary. He is also Assistant Governor at District level and sorted the MoM contracts. Then Cliff Hall who is our club’s Foundation & International chair and sorted all the district grants and money tally. Then there is President Manhar Taylor and then Angela Robbins. I am the Ukrainian community link for Tameside Rotary and organised a Christmas Carol Service in 2024 at the Ukrainian Centre to raise funds for the Incubator. We have all been president of the club over the last 10 years.

On the group photos is Eddie Tunstall on the left. Wendy Warrington on the left. Josh Good with the large camera on the right.

COMMUNITY CAROL SERVICE RAISES FUNDS FOR BABY

INCUBATOR FOR UKRAINE

A very special Community Carol Service organised jointly by Ashton Ukrainian Centre(AUGB) and Tameside Rotary took place on Saturday 7th December in aid of the MoMBaby Incubator 4Ukraine Appeal.

This free fellowship event opened with joyful music provided by the St John’s BrassBand and, after an opening welcome speech by Petro Rewko MBE Chair of theUkrainian Associations of Great Britain, was followed by a beautiful dance display bytwo competition winners from the Ukrainian community. This was a hard act to followbut Tameside Community Voices, led by Joyce Hansell, admirably rose to thechallenge taking the opportunity to put the choir through their paces including some less rehearsed numbers taking some of the volunteers by surprise! Their fantasticrenditions soon had the audience singing along and the first half of the concert endedin a rapturous applause.

St John’s Brass Band played festive music throughout a short intermission which wasthen followed by a raffle initially kickstarted by the Civic Mayor of Tameside, Cllr BettyAffleck where, perhaps not unsurprisingly, the bottles of wine and spirits were snappedup first. The last winning ticket was drawn by the former Chair of the Association ofUkrainians in Ashton, Stefan Wotosiansky, who ended up with box of festive biscuitsand a ‘fuzzy duck’!

The amazing Ukrainian dancers took to the stage once more followed by two groupsfrom the Ukraine community who sang songs that were very moving and emotive.

They were then joined by members of Tameside Community Voices. A speciallyprepared song-sheet in both Ukrainian and English allowed the audience to follow andparticipate. The choirs then joined together to sing the final carol ‘Silent Night’.

Rotarian Angela Robbins, Past President, Tameside Rotary took to the stage and said

“As Rotarians, it is our privilege to support many local communities but it’s more of aprivilege and we feel much more driven to help, when a community, like the Ukrainians,are undergoing such turmoil because of the Russian invasion. At a time that we verymuch associate being with our families celebrating Christmas, many people attendingand participating today will be missing their loved ones back in Ukraine. Our ‘BabyIncubator 4 Ukraine’ appeal is just one way we felt we could help. The generousdonations received today will go directly towards this project which feels so veryappropriate at Christmas time”. Angela went on to pay tribute to all the contributorscommenting on how the show would, indeed, have been fit for the legendary BingCrosby!

Rotarian Cliff Hall, Past President and Club International and Foundation Team Leader gave a brief update on the ‘Incubator 4 Ukraine Appeal’ confirming that “so far the sum raised is £9400 including £403 raised from this Carol Service”. We now hope to shortlybe in a position to raise the remaining £2000 so we can buy and safely transport thisvery special baby incubator (which runs off different sources of power including car batteries) to help save precious and innocent premature babies. It is our sincere wishthat this initiative will help foster a sense of hope at such a difficult time for theUkrainian community.”

As the service moved towards its conclusion Mayor Cllr Betty Affleck thanked theevent organisers for inviting her and her Consort Declan Fitzpatrick saying “I canassure you that the thoughts of everyone at Tameside Council are with the families of Ukraine. In any war, it is always the youngest and the oldest who suffer the most. For that reason, I wish you the best of luck with your ‘Baby Incubator 4 Ukraine’ appeal and wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year”.

Tameside President Manhar Taylor presented small tokens of appreciation to Tameside Community Voices, St John’s Brass Band and the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Ashton Ukrainian Association Roger Stone and Larysa Iwanckyj-Doherty without whose support this fellowship event could not have taken place. Firmly with Christmastime in mind and given the number of families and children attending the service, a special appearance was made by Tameside Rotary’s Santa Clause who gave out small gifts!

Article Appearing in Rotary Digital Feb 2025