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Chulpan joined the philanthropy sector in 2005 when even the word itself raised eyebrows and children’s cancer was deemed incurable. It was largely to Chulpan’s credit that the attitudes towards both philanthropy and children with cancer have radically changed.
In one of her recent interviews, Chulpan confessed:
“Changing the world for the better always comes with pain, with fatigue, with some heavy-hearted feeling of unfairness, with this unbreakable wall. But, as it turns out, there is always a flashlight that will sparkle at some point behind this dark spell, and you just walk towards this light hoping that you can peck a hole in that wall and squeeze your way through it.”
Philanthropy and culture in the midst of pandemic, hurdles that had to be faced, values and hope — these were some of the things we talked about with Chulpan Khamatova on July 25 at 5 p.m. in the Fostering Leadership Project stream. Below are some quotations from the podcast.
“I am already seeing the crisis reformatting into some artistic statements, there will be plays, maybe films. Definitely theatrical performances. As strange as it sounds, I think that these difficult times have changed arts people, especially in theater and film, who were never fond of social subjects and always tried to keep their distance. And now they jumped right into it because of this difficult situation. And I think there will be only more of that.”
“When I realized that everything was going down in flames, that we were facing a major recession, I was very frightened. But then I thought: OK, throwing my hands up now is the easiest thing to do. You know, winding everything down and saying: there is no Gift of Life Foundation anymore because we have no money and no resources. And then I thought that this may actually be a great chance to start from scratch. Instead of thinking “we are such a large foundation with a serious history”, we can accept that we are facing a situation we’ve never faced before. This is a clean slate to start writing something completely new. <…> Will we make mistakes? Of course we’ll make mistakes, but we’ll be moving forward. We just need to set a really specific goal, [and remember] that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“What is charity work? It is your disagreement with the wrong order of things, with the way the world works that you don’t like. I disagree that old people are rotting away all alone in their facilities. I disagree that psychiatric “boarding schools” are turning teenagers into vegetables. I disagree that people die of starvation. I disagree that domestic violence exists. I don’t want to live in a world I don’t like. And I extrapolate my disagreement into helping the foundations I support.”
“Expecting results can quickly create the ground for burnout. When you’re inside the movement, you beat your head against the wall — that’s the only thing you can enjoy inside the movement. Many years ago, Dina Korzun and I just couldn’t understand why we had been given teaspoons and told: OK, now dig a thousand kilometers below and find the gold streak, and we might have oil down there as well. And all we got was those teaspoons. But at some point you get to realize that while you have been digging with you teaspoon, changing the laws for four or five years, looking for one loophole, then another — some microscopic changes have been occurring, which are eventually creating a very different pulsation. And this pulsation is breaking down the wall and turning into an outcome for everyone to see.”
“Everyone, literally everyone should stop what they are doing and try to understand: what can I change? How can I change the situation? And if you contribute even just 10 rubles, 100 rubles, your time, if you become a blood donor, you are actually changing the world, for real. And I mean changing the world in a very tangible way. Small things people do, small steps, small energies, all of them together form tangible big help, which turns into some people’s lives, lives given as gifts. Or homes, when we talk about children living in orphanages. So just help. Don’t think it will be done by someone other than ourselves.”
Watch the video (in Russian)
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