Healing Hands was ThinkTree’s chosen charity to benefit from ticket sales at Holistic Health. Run by our member Sue Stretton, they provide therapies to those still affected by injury in Sarajevo as well as to UK Veterans. At the moment, however, they are focused on supporting Ukraine.
Says Sue and the team we work with send two or three vans over pretty much every seven to ten days.
“The guys drive constantly, only stopping for fuel and a comfort break. One drives while the other eats and sleeps. It’s a long drive and potentially dangerous as they are a target for interception and robbery to stop these donations arriving.
“They are unloaded at the border and reloaded onto military vehicles to be taken directly into Ukraine to hospitals, field hospitals and to the residents who remain and have no food or supplies.
“When the people fleeing arrive at the reception centre, they’re given a care package of personal items and we send soft toys etc for the children as they are usually only allowed to bring their favourite toy with them. We send sweets as well.
These pictures show some of the team with those children
“At Holistic Health UK Show we were lucky to have a stand once again donated by our Patron Gary Hackett who organised the show. “Our goal was to fundraise as much as we could for our Ukraine Appeal where we collect monetary donations to allow us to purchase urgently needed surgical and medical items to send over to the hospitals and the field hospitals where they are so needed.
“We have a doctor working with us who is from Ukraine and has family there still. She tells me what is required and I source and buy it for them or try and get it donated.
“At Holistic Health my dedicated team of volunteers gave taster sessions of various therapies to raise these funds. We managed to raise just under £1,000 in the two days which was amazing.
“We were very grateful for the help and support from the team at ThinkTree Hub for donating £670 for us which will be put to very good use.
“Thank you to everyone who donated
“We are still accepting donations through click here to support us“We will continue to appeal for Ukraine while the war continues and obviously afterwards as there will be so much need. We know from our extensive experience in Bosnia what is happening there and the legacy it will leave behind so we are already making contacts there in readiness for us setting up an infrastructure to enable us to go over and help in the aftermath war leaves in its wake.
“We continue to work in Sarajevo, Bosnia and if any qualified therapists would be interested in joining us in this valuable, humbling and immensely rewarding work please contact us on Healinghandsnetwork@gmail.com Or membershiphhn@gmail.com and we will love to hear from you. We are all volunteers and self-fund so all money goes where it’s needed.”
Sue Stretton