Nedirafonden - Help us to help

"There is nothing like helping a child to an acceptable life." Help us to help. POSTGIRO 90 19 93-6

In 1993 Kurt Sköld, senior citizen of Ystad, and TV4 Öresund started the Nedira Foundation. It all started when Kurt’s little dog Dacke needed exercise and fresh air. They used to walk down to a couple of ponds near Kurt’s house in Ystad. Refugees from a camp nearby sometimes strolled in the neighbourhood to enjoy the scenery. Dacke caught the attention of the refugee children and after some time Kurt was invited to visit the camp.

-In there I heard about the hardships of the Balkan wars, Kurt relates. In this way I realized how these people needed help of all kinds. I felt intimately committed to all this.

In the camp one of the girls, aged 9, had a very grave handicap. Her name was Nedira and she suffered from Apert’s syndrome. Her fingers had grown together, her toes likewise. Her skull was deformed. She could neither eat, nor drink without assistance.

Kurt asked himself if Nedira could not get help to have an operation to uncover her fingers and toes. However, after several contacts with the authorities it was evident that she could not be offered such an operation as she was a refugee.

-So, on my own authority I started to collect money for the operation. I brought the girl to different newspapers and to TV, where I told her story and asked for contributions from the general public. Together with TV4 Öresund I started a subscription fund. Quite considerable sums were paid in and we could begin a series of operations. In order to make all the operations possible I had to make efforts to allow her to stay in Sweden with a permanent residence permit.

A residence permit was granted at the turn of 1993. After then the Swedish state took over all costs for Nedira’s treatment. Because of that there was plenty of collected money to be used for helping other children.

-Having helped Nedira to a better life stimulated me to go on and try to help others in the same way. In 1993 Kurt set up the Nedira Foundation. The board of the Foundation include Ann-Cathrine Haglund, then County Governor of the County of Malmöhus and Kaj Persson, Principal of TV4 Öresund. Since then the Foundation has helped a number of children to a fairly large extent.

One of the best-known cases is that of Karolina Miekiewic from Poland. She burnt herself severely when at the age of seven she fell into a large cauldron with boiling soup at her grandmother’s place of work. Today after some twenty operations she lives generally speaking the normal life of a teenager at home in Swinoujscie.