"Miles of Grace", Yulia McGuffie

My name is Yulia McGuffie, I'm a journalist. On April,9 for the first time in my life I‘ll take part in a charitable half-marathon to raise funds for mobile clinics for HIV-positive children. I’ve never taken part neither in the marathon nor in the half marathon. I don’t really like running, it's true. But I really love life. When my friends from the ANTIAIDS Foundation called me a few weeks ago and offered to do it - for some reason, I immediately said that I would run. "Miles of Grace" is a multi-stage project of the ANTIAIDS Foundation dedicated to promote active lifestyle and raise funds for the project "Mobile clinics for HIV-positive children".

I know those kids in remote parts of Ukraine, where the doctors could hardly get to, also love to live. The mobile clinic can quickly reach those children and bring the knowledge to the local medical stuff to raise the quality of medical help in the small cities. I believe that mobile clinic could save someone’s life and make it as long and interesting as ours.

That is the reason I run and call on all my friends and community to support this challenge and raise necessary funds for mobile clinics for HIV-positive children. For the last two weeks every day early in the morning I've been taking my dog to the park to work out together. And it is absolutely amazing feeling when children that are far away, whom I don’t know, but whom mobile clinic will definitely deliver medical care, have already made me better.

The launch of the project was timed to Kyiv Half Marathon in 2016. Ukrainian celebrities and politicians participated that charitable run. On the subsequent stages project was supported by the pilots of the automobile team Sushiya Racing Team, Ukrainian weightlifters, who represented Ukraine at the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, participants of the third Kyiv bike marathon «Kyivska Sotka». In 2017 the project will be reloaded and continue its mission with the new team of ambassadors. They will participate Kyiv Half Marathon that takes place on April,9.

Mobile clinics have been working in Ukraine since 2009. Due to their work HIV-positive children from small towns have access to qualified health care. A team of doctors and social workers on regular basis deliver mediсines and supplies to the most outlying and affected by HIV/AIDS regions of Ukraine. This project provides the access to high-level medical assistance to low-income families, keeps the communication between central and local hospitals and specialists, significantly increases the coverage of the patients’ diagnostics and monitoring, and consulting their families. Mobile clinics give the opportunity to educate medical staff, raise their level of professional knowledge. Due to the scale of the project, it becomes possible to create the database of the patients.
All raised funds will be directed to medical supplies purchase, to expand the work of mobile clinics and to increase medical staff involvement.