Being a
father, Timur
Tillyaev has a deep awareness of what children require to
thrive. Along with his wife, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva,
he also feels great compassion for the children forced to endure poverty in
their Uzbek homeland. Back in 2002 the couple decided to do something about it.
They named their foundation You Are Not Alone and looked for ways
to provide long-term solutions to the challenges faced by orphans and underprivileged
children.
Recognizing
how ill-health and limited education hold a person back, they decided to focus
their assistance in this direction. In other words, the objective was to build
up the recipient’s independence. Or, as they put it;
“to
help unlock the children’s potential by providing them with an all-round education, and to prepare children for
independent life, encouraging them to become
self-reliant, confident and emotionally stable you adults.” (https://www.lolakarimova.com/about-the-foundation).
One of their
earliest programs was to provide for the upgrading of orphanages across the
country. Whether it was refurbishing entire institutions or simply providing
new equipment the goal was always the same – improve the quality of care and
the variety of services. Specifically, their goal was to “ensure that
vulnerable children grow up in a caring and loving environment”.
More
generally, You Are Not Alone
supports large numbers of kids through primary and secondary schooling. Given
that both Timur
Tillyaev and Lola Tillyaeva have enjoyed the fruits of tertiary
education, seeing some of the children they’ve helped graduate university is
especially satisfying.
To tackle the complex challenge of health care provision, Timur Tillyaev and Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva’s foundation decided to set up the National Centre of the Social Adaptation of Children (NCSAC), a charity which provides life-enhancing opportunities to children with disabilities, offering diagnoses, orthopaedic and neurological treatment, speech therapy and education free of charge. The charity is fitted with the latest equipment for children suffering from musculoskeletal disorders. To date the organisation has helped over 8,000 children with special needs, including children suffering from cerebral palsy, speech delay, autism, Down syndrome, as well as children with other learning disabilities.
Identifying a
need at the State Perinatal Centre in Tashkent, You Are Not Alone stepped in.
They generously provided new pieces of equipment such as; x-ray
systems, cardiac monitors and ultrasound
machines. Seeing the benefits that this program brought to mothers and
their new-borns must have been deeply moving.
The Foundation also helped to renovate operating
theatres in the National Specialized Surgery Centre in Tashkent in 2013.
Hearing about
chronic shortages of equipment hampering service in the State Institute of
Haematology and Blood Transfusion they were quick to act. A suite of new
machines and instruments have improved patient care there.
A very
successful partnership has developed with the French organization, Associaiton
La Chaîne de l’Espoir (Chain of Hope). This program targets children with chronic cardiac
conditions and ensures they receive the best treatment available. Timur Tillyaev and Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva’s foundation offer everything from access to the best specialists,
whether they be Uzbek or foreign, to having kids flown for treatment to
international hospitals.
With the Foundation’s support, over the past five years French surgeons
have performed over 130 surgical procedures on children with congenital heart
conditions from Uzbekistan’s low-income families and orphanages.
