Oleksandr Kyyanytsy

Oleksandr Kyyanytsya was born near Kyiv in 1990. He is 35 years old and has suffered from cerebral palsy since birth. When he was 15 years old, he and his family moved to Montreal. At the age of 17, Oleksandr went back to Kyiv for another serious surgery on both his legs. Coming back to Canada, he had a long and complex one-year rehabilitation. After putting in the hard work of learning to walk, he was able to do it again. From that time,  he understood that walking is a significant gift that we begin to appreciate only when we lose it.

When the war started, Oleksandr began to think about how he could help his motherland. He got an idea to organise a big walk from city to city to raise money for medical equipment for children's hospitals in Kyiv and frontline hospitals.

The first walk-a-thon took place in the summer of 2022. He walked from Montreal to Ottawa in three weeks. Him and his team raised 22,000 CAD. They decided to give 17,000 CAD to two children's hospitals, and as for the rest, Oleksandr along with his team bought a few shunts to treat wounded people in the Neurosurgical Institute.

For the second walk in 2023, Oleksandr took the same route, and raised 8,000 CAD. That same year, Oleksandr began to collaborate with One Hundred Volunteer Dobrovolya - an organisation in Kyiv that provides medical equipment, tools and other supplies to frontline hospitals since 2014. Oleksandr's team uses the money to cover different hospitals' needs.

During the third year of the war, he completed two walks: one from Toronto to Niagara Falls and another from Montreal to Ottawa. Unfortunately, he raised only $2,000 walking from Montreal to Ottawa. Nevertheless, the Toronto-Niagara Falls walk brought the team $8,000 to help frontline hospitals.

This year, Oleksandr's walk-a-thon was from Calgary to Banff with the help and collaboration of UCC Calgary, UCC Bow Valley and the Ukrainian Community in Cochrane. The fascinating work of these organisations and volunteers helped him raise almost $27,000 CAD. It was an outstanding example of union and aid.