With the “Make a Wish Association”, we also started getting involved this year in Social Responsibility Projects, which are one of the most valuable platforms where sensitivity on social, cultural and environmental issues are expressed to the society and social stakeholders.
Established in the USA in 1980, the Make-A-Wish® Foundation is an international association that has 50 branches operating in 41 countries. This association is a non-governmental organization that fulfills the wishes of children between ages 3 and 18 who struggle with a life-threatening disease and aims at giving the children and their families happiness and power to hold on to life. It realized its 16th year in Turkey.
Working with many institutions in Turkey, the Make a Wish Association sends the wishes of children living in various provinces to its partner institutions as directed by Expert Doctors and Psychologists. The institution in concern works together with its employees on a scenario as to how the child’s wish can be made more joyful. While doing this, the employees act in line with the 3-hour training given to them by the Association for once before starting the project. Designed by the Expert Doctors and Psychologists of the Association, the process is then completed when we raise the morale of the children to the highest levels with our magical touches along their struggles with their diseases helping them realize their wishes.
Our effort was to help Sabah, whose greatest dream was to become a ballerina, to realize her wishes. After mounting them in our own dream world, we offered her the computer on a pink desk as she dreamed of, Elsa, her most popular cartoon character, her ballet dancing dream, and the food and toys she liked. Her wish day, which started at Sabah’s home, continued at the dance school and ended again at her home, left unforgettable memories in us and in her heart.
While fulfilling Sabah’s wishes, we arranged custom made ballet outfits for her and gave a uniform of her favorite soccer team with the signatures of the players on it as a gift. Doing so, we did not forget her soccer fan brother. We also gave him a signed uniform of his favorite team and a ball and we made little surprises before the wish day arrived. With innumerable surprises planned for Sabah, we picked her up from home and drove her to the dance school on that special day. We let Sabah, who wore a ballet outfit for the first time, perform ballet dancing with a professional dance teacher who was a friend of one of our volunteers. We prepared a ballet certificate specifically for her, giving her the Oscar of “the most beautiful ballerina of the future”.
Later, we let her wear the costume of her favorite cartoon character Elsa and we experienced this special day with her in the concept, the whole of which we designed as Elsa as a surprise, offering her treats prepared by our employees and their loved ones.
This lovely environment with also the presence of tiny ballerinas witnessed beautiful scenes. Sabah was so happy that she wanted to do ballet also with the tiny ballerinas, which she did, and then returned to the party.
While we were busy with the party, another surprise was waiting for her uncovered at home, a computer on a pink desk and the song of her most favorable singer. We prepared this scene by stalling when we went to her home to pick her up. We designed every stage of the surprises as Volunteers. After the party, we drove to her home and let Sabah have these special surprises.
In this project where we, as the Volunteers of PASHA Bank, also took part, we closely felt how valuable it was to help an ill child realize her wishes not using our financial sources but using our relationships and labor. We look forward to seeing the day she regains her health and we take pride in participating in this CSR project in which we set our hearts as volunteers.
The Volunteers of PASHA Bank will continue to volunteer to write new stories with further social responsibility projects.