Did you know that the Foundation ‘The Home in Lodz’ is already 10 years old? It is indeed unbelievable how quickly the time passes by. For this special occasion we wish to reflect and look back, bring back the old times… we wish to tell you how it all began…
Once upon a time, there was a very wise woman. Jola Bobińska.
Our story begins marking a very important and special moment in her life. After many long years of her hard work, of running her own business – she decides to take a little break. What she really dreams of is to stop … pause for a second, rest, take care of her own self and her loved ones.
As she faces these urges and desires her grandson – Franek – is born. They spend a lot of time together – Jola and Franek – they go for long, lazy but also lovely walks, they enjoy themselves thoroughly on the playground, hopping, jumping, swinging for hours and hours bursting with energy… and all there is, is pure love and happiness. It gives Jola so much verve that she decides to go back to her active, working life.
But … she does not know yet what undertaking she is about to face. What really left its impact on Jola and what decided upon her next steps was quite an extraordinary meeting with Tisa Żawrocka, a director of a non-governmental organisation ‘Gajusz’, with whom she visited a little boy in a hospital on Sporna Street… His name was Dawid. Utterly adorable, wonderful little guy. He was a preemie, who for the past year, has been living in the hospital. The hospital was his ‘home’, and his closest family – the hospital staff: nurse aunties, and doctors taking on the role of his uncles. Little Dawid was constantly monitored by a specialist medical equipment which was calmly watching over his fragile life.
Once Jola visited Dawid she could not stop thinking about him… She began to ask more questions, wonder and speculate more and more. It turned out that there were more of little Dawids …there were many more children in a similar situation – sick and abandoned by their biological families. There was no place in traditional orphanages for them. Simply not enough funds, resources, space and so they live in hospitals, hospices, residential homes.
And so this is where the long journey begins: what can one do and how can one help these sick children? Determined to find a solution Jola Bobińska visited many institutions gathering information, talking and conversing with many, looking for insights, checking facts…
She has met a lot of kind people – many ready to help her in her new pursuit. She remembers many of them with warmth overtaking her heart e.g. Elżbieta Jaszczak, Robert Pipiński as well as Jadwiga Saramak, whose words she remembers till this day: ‘It won’t be easy. But it’ll be worth it…’
