We met a baby called Abuzar who was

suffering from a very rare congenital

heart defect.

We approached various cardiologists

around the world for advice and were

basically told that nothing could be done

for him. One doctor told us to “Stop

disturbing this child and let him return

home to die” - but we never gave up

hope!

We were introduced to the Novick

Cardiac Alliance

(www.novickcardiacalliance.org)who

took on Abuzar’s case. He travelled

with his parents to Pakistan for his

treatment. Dr Novick performed the

risky surgery. It was nerve racking

waiting for news but we were rewarded

with the best news ever—the operation

had been a success!

Nurse Stacey spent the next three

weeks teaching Abuzar’s illiterate

parents how to properly care for him

once he was discharged.

Abuzar is now back at home in

Afghanistan and is recovering well. He

looks much healthier and is gaining

weight. He will have further surgeries as

he gets older but for now, Abuzar is

doing great!

Abuzar’s Story

I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

24 Hour Run/

Walk Marathon

2

20 Kids to

Kolkata!

3

Current

Campaigns

4

Vaccinations &

Blood Drives!

5

Thank You’s

Our Donors

6

7

Contact Us! 8

O C T - D E C 2 0 1 5

F E A T U R E D

S T O R Y

Abuzar’s

Story

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3

Registered as a 501(c)3 tax exempt

charity with EIN: 47-3858255 since

December 2013

H a l l o w e e n F u n d ra i s e r 2 0 1 5 Zwan Family Charity held its final major evening event of 2015. It was a Halloween party held at

Kabul Lodge on Thursday 29th October 2015. We were very happy with the support we received

for this event from the International Community which raised almost $2000! We held another

raffle and Best Halloween Costume Competition and the following winners were:

Raffle

1st Prize ~ Kerry Wall

2nd Prize ~ Jean-Louis Giroux

3rd Prize ~ Janet Filepe

Best Halloween Costume Award

Bath-Sheeba for her fabulous Lady Vampire costume!

Zwan Family Charity wishes to extend their gratitude to Eugene de Villiers for helping us to

organize the event, the team from Sabre for providing outstanding security for the venue and Kabul

Lodge for excellent accommodation facilities, the food supplied on the evening and a great

breakfast the following morning!

24 HOUR RUN/WALK MARATHON

13 & 14 November 2015

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

Top Runners

1. Frank D’Hondt

Top male runner who ran

130 laps or 113.750Kms

(70.65 miles!), 28,600 steps

(13kms altitude climb) -

Raven Rae Afghanistan Consultancy Services and Zwan Family Charity hosted a 24 Hour Run/

Walk Marathon in Kabul on the 13th & 14th November 2015 in aid of Deba & Nageena, two

sisters suffering from a blood disorder called Thalassemia. The girls require bone marrow

transplants to cure them of this disease.

We received tremendous support from local & international businesses and 30 runners took

part on the day. There were runners from the international community and ultra athletes from

the Afghan community. We also received media coverage from BBC Persian, TOLO News and

Dr Gran & Kim also appeared on the Dubai Eye radio show to raise awareness of the event. It

was a great 24 hours enjoyed by the runners and spectators alike. In all, we raised almost

$10,000 on the day for the sisters through donors from around the world!

Prior to the marathon, Cure2Children donated the HLA—bone marrow matching. We tested

the whole family for a bone marrow match. Finally, we had received the news we had all been

praying for...both girls have matches within their family! With the help of Dr Lawrence Faulkner,

we have begun the next step in the process by diagnostics and testing to confirm the girls bodies

are in healthy enough shape to be bone marrow transplant recipients.

A special thank you to our sponsors: Raven Rae, IDG, Westex, CocoBee, Nowzad, Black Cat,

Zardozi, Malik Express, PGS, BMK Afghanistan, NJ RMC and Hamid Sign. And extra special

thank you to Irshard Hassimdeen for donating prizes for the Best Male & Female Runners.

To keep up to date with developments on this story, please visit our website where you will find

the page for the Thalassemia Sisters. We are still raising funds for the girls, you can donate via

our website or visit their GoFundMe page:: www.gofundme.com/sx6kh7fk

2. Dave Lavery

Ran 119 laps or

104.125kms (64.70 miles!),

26,180 steps (11.9kms

altitude climb up/down)

3. Sean MacGilivary

Ran with a 12 kg (26.45lbs!)

pack throughout the entire

course accomplishing 114

laps or 100kms (62.14

miles!), 25,080 steps (11.4

kms altitude climb up/

down)

To see footage of the

marathon, copy the links

below:

http://www.bbc.com/

persian/

afghani-

stan/2015/11/151115_l93_ka

bul_marathon

https://youtu.be/aJTcuLw50tU

Read Franks blog about the

Marathon here: http://

franklyrunner.blogspot.gr

Zwan Family Charity was approached by an Afghan charity, CEOA, to assist in financing the

transportation of 20 disabled Afghan children from all over Afghanistan to travel to RCFC Hospital in

Kolkata, India.

The children are going to be receiving orthopedic treatment, the extent of the treatment is on a case by

case basis and RCFC have included all treatment up to surgery, mobility aids, physiotherapy,

rehabilitation and prosthetics at no cost.

Once we agreed to take on the case, we made appeals to our global network of supporters who rallied

to the cause and helped us raise over $17,000 in just 5 weeks!

As we go to press, we have booked airline tickets for the first part of the journey, Kabul to New Delhi,

and will be booking the tickets from New Delhi to Kolkata in the coming days.

Zwan Family Charity wants to extend a special thank you to Stevie Spit, Pablos International and friends

in Spain for a fun filled night of fundraising! Kim & Janette did a live link up from Kabul to Spain to thank

everyone for all their hard work in organizing the evening. This was our FIRST international fundraising

event outside of Afghanistan!

In total, Stevie, his fellow entertainers and the local Expatriate community raised almost $800 for this

worthy cause!!

The campaign is still open as we need to pay for travel costs back to Kabul! Donations can be made via

the Donate Page on our website, through our GoFundMe campaign page or PayPal - email

Kim Wolenski on kim@zwanfamilycharity.org

2 0 D i s a b l e d C h i l d r e n t o I n d i a A p p e a l

Every year, Zwan Family Charity raises money to pay for Orphans in Kabul to receive Flu vaccinations

as part of our Disease Prevention Initiative. We are increasing the numbers of orphans who receive

the vaccination each year; 100 in 2014, 150 in 2015 and we are aiming to vaccinate 300 in 2016.

This year, we vaccinated the orphans from Sharmsa Village, Window of Hope and Mother Teresa

Orphanages. The children were very brave when receiving their shots!

Thank you to everyone who donated to ensure the orphans are protected against Flu this winter.

Orphan Flu Vaccination Program 2015

American University of Afghanistan Blood Drive 2015

Blood Drive Collects 78.5 Liters of Blood

Zwan Family Charity and the Community Service Club at

American University of Afghanistan worked in conjunction

with the hard working, well-trained, professional staff of

Afghanistan’s Central Blood Bank on a cold day in

November to collect blood from 157 students and faculty

of AUAF.

This event falls into our “Afghans Helping Afghans”

Initiative in which we work to teach Afghans the virtue of

giving.

We were happy to see hundreds of young Afghans show

up to donate blood or just support one another.

We hope to do another blood drive in 2016 and also hope

to increase the participants and amount collected.

Current Campaign ~ Samiullah

Current Campaign ~ Bibi Hawa

Samiullah is two and a half years old. He had

his first cardiac surgery as an infant. He now

needs a second surgery to finish correcting

the congenital heart abnormalities he suffers

from.

He has had his assessment in Peshawar and

has been referred to a hospital in Lahore. The

estimated cost of this procedure along with

the costs of travel and a Zwan Family Charity

Escort is $4,000. Samiullah will not require

any further surgeries once this is complete.

A very special thank you to young Odin

Hooker, 9, who had spent a week stacking

wood for his $20 allowance. Once he heard

of Samiullah’s story, he ran inside and donated

his money to Samiullah’s Campaign! Zwan

Family Charity is touched by the generosity of

our youngest supporter to date!

Donations can be made through PayPal, cash

or on Samiullah’s GoFundMe page which can

be found at:

https://www.gofundme.com/475eaxxk

BiBi Hawa is 9 months old and from a village outside of Jalalabad. She was born with a congenital heart defect that is called “Tetralogy of Fallot”. It is comprised of four defects.

BiBi is actually tolerating the defect quite well and eats and gains weight. She has some periods of time that she has difficult breathing. She has times with slight blueness around the lips. Her heart is still a normal size but it will become progressively more damaged if she does not have her surgery. We have connected BiBi with a pediatric cardiac surgeon in Kolkata, India.

The cost to get her, her parents and a Zwan Family Charity escort there is $7,000. If you would like to make a donation, please visit Bibi’s Campaign page at:

https://www.gofundme.com/a564u6jg

Its not only donations that enable us to carry out our work; being connected to medical

institutions, donation of medical equipment, toys, baby items and most importantly, time, also

helps us to help our clients. Without the below mentioned people, our work would have been

much more difficult in 2015.

We give thanks to the following people for being a part of our family:

Ms June and the PC for all the beautiful stuffed animals that bring smiles to so many small faces! Thanks also

to Michelle & Tanja for allowing us to receive the goodies through their post box!

Ms Carole for donating the beautiful pearl necklace that raised $1000 for our General Funds through a raffle

during our Halloween Party.

Mr Simon Clough for donating his time & talents by designing the coffee mugs that were sold at the blood

drive at the American University of Afghanistan.

Ms Keren Bobker for connecting us to so many media outlets and allowing us to raise awareness for Zwan

Family Charity and its causes.

Ms Sherry, Partnership for Telehealth for the AMAZING Bluetooth Stethoscope and all the Doctors who

regularly donate time and advice to allow Zwan Family Charity to make the best decisions for their clients.

Thanks to PGS Management and staff for allowing us to use their APO address box so that we could receive

our Halloween Party decorations, without the items, we could not have decorated for the bash!

Darya Village and NJ RMC for allowing us to use their facilities for two small fundraising events.

PARSA for connecting us with much needed Counsellors for patients in stressful situations.

Dr Ehab Morcos for being our point of contact on the ground in Dubai, UAE, which allows us to have a drop

off/pick up point for much needed medicines and equipment.

Tom Kraemer for donating your time and legal expertise to Zwan Family Charity at a time it was truly

needed for us to move forward.

Rachel Rider for also donating your time and legal expertise to Zwan Family Charity at a time it was truly

needed for us to move forward.

Chalmers Photography for donating photos to raffle which have raised over $1000 and pledging 100% of their

sales to us!

Pat Conlee for donating her time and expertise working to connect Deba & Nageena with theThalassemia

Study in the United States.

Finally, we would like to give a BIG thank you to our Prayer Team who have brought the strength of prayer

to bring us the results we wanted.

Thank You’s!

A Few Words from Dr Gran & Kim ~ Reflecting on 2015

2015 has been an amazing year for Zwan Family Charity! We have far surpassed the donations we had expected to

collect. Each and every donation has been given to us out of trust and friendship as we had not yet received the 501c3

status that allows us apply for large grants. We have been deeply humbled by the support and generosity of everyone

involved in every way.

We have also been moved by the stories of the patients and families who have come to Zwan family Charity in their

time of need. Although becoming close to our recipients makes the heartache more painful when someone passes on,

we are honored that families trust us with their loved ones and allow us to become part of their lives.

Dr. Gran wants to say “thank you again to every one…especially Dave.” He also wants to say that we are committed

to offering our charity services to those in need regardless of religion, ethnicity or tribal affiliation….”we will help

people of all religions.”

Kim wants to tell everyone to watch for a request to sponsor her in 2016 when she jumps out of an airplane and does

her first Sky Dive to raise funds for Zwan Family Charity.

This morning, Monday 30th November 2015, we received notice that the US Department of Treasury has granted

501(c)3 tax exempt status to Zwan Family Charity. We are ecstatic at this news and expect 2016 to be bigger than

ever!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Peaceful & Prosperous New Year to all our supporters who are heading into

their holiday season!

Our Donors Page

Donate via iGive to Zwan Family Charity

iGive is an excellent way of donating to charity for FREE! For every purchase you

make online at participating stores, Zwan Family Charity receives a percentage of

your purchase from the store at no extra cost to you or us!

You can join iGive by copying and pasting the link below into your web browser.

There are also Apps for iOS and Android devices so you can shop and donate from

anywhere in the world!

http://www.iGive.com/ZwanFamilyCharity

Board of Directors

President - Dr Gran Zwan

Email: drgran@zwanfamilycharity.org

Vice President - Stanley Wolenski

Email: stanley@zwanfamilycharity.org

Charity Secretary - Kimberly Wolenski

Email: kim@zwanfamilycharity.org

Find us at:

Website: www.zwanfamilycharity.org

Facebook: Zwan Family Charity

Twitter: @ZwanCharity

LinkedIn: Zwan Family Charity

Afghan Team:

Charity Coordinator - Janette Chalmers

Email: janette@zwanfamilycharity.org

Charity Administrator - Janet Felipe

Email: janet@zwanfamilycharity.org

“Charity begins at home

but it does not end there’’

Contact Us!