At Pwrteams, we believe in giving back to causes that create real, lasting change. As part of our Christmas Charity Give initiative last year, we donated 25 EUR on behalf of each employee to charities of their choice, making a tangible impact in Ukraine, Poland and Bulgaria. In this interview series, we highlight the work of these organisations and the impact of our collective contributions.
Alma Spei Children's Hospice was founded on a dream of creating an institution that would help terminally ill children and their families live safely at home. All children want to be at home, feel loved, laugh and play. They don't want pain, suffering or more hospital visits. And they still dream of happiness and smiles for their parents.
So, the idea was born: what if we created a hospice that would meet all these needs? It would provide 24/7 comprehensive medical and nursing care, but also - it would take care of the well-being of children and their families, integration, good times and beautiful memories.
Alma Spei comes from Latin. Alma Spes means "nourishing hope". The name was invented by the mother of our first hospice patient.
At Alma Spei Children's Hospice, we accompany the child and their family in the daily life of living with an incurable disease. We provide professional, comprehensive care at home, we fight for every smile of our patients. Our mission is to give the family priceless time for love.
17 years ago, the reality was completely different. Parents of sick children wandered around hospitals, feeling helpless and lonely. When we organised the first hospice integration trips – to take entire families to a nice place for a few days, offer them interesting activities, but also show them that they are not alone, that others also have sick children, that we are in this together – it was almost impossible to find a centre adapted to the needs of people with disabilities.
Fortunately, a lot has changed over the last dozen or so years. Both in terms of availability and quality of medical equipment, support from the state, architectural amenities, but also – a lot has changed in people. For the better.
Alma Spei Hospice for Children operates today in a different context and under different conditions. Our mission remains the same: to ensure a good life for terminally ill children and their families.
We operate in accordance with the guidelines of the World Health Organization, which defines palliative care as an active, comprehensive and holistic approach to a terminally ill person and their loved ones. The word „pallium” comes from Greek and means „cloak”. Hospice care is not only to relieve the patient's pain and physical suffering, but also to surround every aspect of their functioning with a protective cloak.
As a non-governmental organisation, we implement this idea by providing 24/7 medical care to terminally ill children in their family homes. We lend them the medical equipment they need, provide social assistance to families, organise birthday parties for children, meetings with Santa Claus, angels, the Easter Bunny and fairy tale characters. We make their little dreams come true.
The daily challenge is to be available in the medical sphere and open to provide for other needs of the families of terminally ill children.
We have built a professional team and with the help of donours, we are able to carry out our mission.
Of course, we encounter many challenges, especially material ones, which are related to the implementation of our mission. One of the basic aspects of our work is the daily commute to the family homes of our members under our care. We travel almost 130 thousand kilometres a year to provide medical care to terminally ill children in their family homes. And such a prosaic challenge is having efficient vehicles and financing the travel of the medical team and foundation employees, i.e. buying fuel.
We strive to meet these challenges, among others, through cooperation and joint actions with individual and institutional donours (e.g. companies) and volunteers as part of our programmes and initiatives focused around the idea called "Passion for Helping".
At this point, it is best to quote the mother of a girl who spent the last days of her life under the care of Alma Spei. Two years have passed since the girl's death.
"So, what is important on this Earth? I think to myself, life here and now. Soon we are flying for a short vacation to Greece. We probably would have spent this money on something else earlier, renovated something, bought something. Now I prefer to create beautiful memories with my son and husband. Ultimately, of all the things we can collect, these are the most valuable."
Volunteers provide significant support for our campaign activities, and they also help us tell the stories of our children and our work. Without volunteers, it would be very difficult to carry out such beautiful campaigns as visits from Santa Claus with gifts, visits from teams of angels or fairy-tale heroes with social assistance or the Easter Bunny's journey with diapers. They support us in everyday, seemingly trivial, work - sorting social assistance, addressing holiday cards, collecting money.
How do we find our volunteers? Or maybe they find us and our charges?
We run information and educational programmes in schools and kindergartens where we talk about our charges, our daily work, and in particular we show how to help wisely by getting involved in, among other things, volunteer activities.
We are also open to cooperation with businesses or various organisations and communities. Our “Passion for Helping” programme is dedicated to communities that would like to get involved in helping through employee volunteering or the broader idea of corporate social responsibility.
First of all, we would like to thank you once again for your support and commitment to activities for terminally ill children – the Alma Spei Children's Hospice. Thanks to the implemented Pwrteams' Christmas Give initiative and the donation made, we were able to cover the quarterly fuel costs associated with the travel of our medical team to our young patients and also finance the trips of our employees and volunteers as part of two Christmas campaigns: visits from St. Nicholas with gifts and visits from angels with social assistance. And the reward - the priceless smiles of our charges and their siblings.
We would like to add life to days in situations where it is no longer possible to add days to life. We want to fulfill small, and sometimes big, childhood dreams. We want our charges to smile as often as possible. We want families to have as many beautiful memories of being together as possible.
And how could the Pwrteams community support our activities and our aspirations? Just be with us and our charges. We will always find an inspiring action or initiative that the employee volunteering community can get involved in.At Pwrteams, giving back isn’t just something we do during the holiday season – it’s a fundamental part of our values. Supporting organisations like the Alma Spei helps us contribute to meaningful change in the communities where we live and work.
We are proud to stand by our employees and partners in making a real difference. Want to learn more about how we give back? Read about the initiatives we're supporting and how we're making a difference together.