Millions of people donate to give 5 year old Darina a chance to smile

Our story about a baby girl born with half of her face and disowned by her family brought an overwhelming response and acted as a trigger to start a fundraising campaign. 

After the target amount of £3,000 was reached, you continued donating and gathered additional £1,355 (total of £4,355).

It was thanks to your time and generosity that The Siberian Times brought Darina to Moscow, got her through a series of medical tests, found Russian experts who thoroughly studied the opportunities for Darina’s surgery in Russia - and concluded that she had to be operated abroad.

Darina's visit to Moscow in spring 2018, pictures and video by Valeria Sukhova 

Russian surgeons require a minimum of 13kg weight to allow a child recover from a blood loss after a major surgery. 

Darina’s weight balances between 10,2kg and 10,8kg, and grows up painfully slow due to complications with eating and frequent illnesses. 

The Russian medical professionals suggested Great Ormond Street Hospital in London as one of the best clinics for Darina’s surgery.

Since the trip abroad was impossible at this stage, The Siberian Times provided an hour long video of Darina in addition to her medical documents, which were kindly reviewed by the hospital's team. 

Preliminary agreement to operate was received from the head of the hospital’s world famous craniofacial unit Professor David Dunaway; the surgical bill came to approximate £67,400. 

Darina with her parents in Gromadsk, Krasnoyarsk region. Pictures: Vera Salnitskaya

Next The Siberian Times spent several months working with Darina’s medical documents to get her case accepted for whole-Russian fundraising program of RusFond, one of Russia’s largest charity funds. 

At the end of January 2019 Darina’s story was aired by Russian morning TV show.

Within 24 hours RusFond gathered almost six million roubles donated via text messages by people from all around Russia. 

The amount should cover Darina’s surgery and return tickets from Siberia to the UK.

Yelena, Darina’s mother will be paying for translation of all their medical documents from Russian into English; the family will also have to cover basic expenses like transport and meals in London. 

Accommodation will be paid by the RusFond. 

Darina at home in Siberia with her parents. Pictures: Vera Salnitskaya

This is a major step forward on Darina’s long road to recovery, and we can never thank you enough for urging us to start the initial GoFundMe campaign and for massively supporting us. 

Darina’s mother burst into tears when she heard about the success of the RusFond fundraising campaign.

‘We will see our girl smiling and happy, years of living in endless fear for her life are coming to an end! Our beautiful girl will live, finally she will be able to play with other children!’, Yelena said. 

‘Thank you everyone for what you’ve done, we would have never managed it without your amazing support.’

A heartfelt thank you from Darina's family to everyone who supported the GoFundMe campaign, that helped the family to move this far on way to the life-changing surgery. 

Video filmed by Vera Salnitskaya

The date of Darina’s surgery is currently set for spring 2019. 

The Siberian Times stays in constant touch with the family, we will be notifying you on every significant update.