During the week when all the focus is on the heroic city of Vukovar, and on the occasion of commemorating the victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja on November 18, the Foundation “Nema predaje” finished a beautiful story in Vukovar.
Sanela and Davor Knezović are the parents of two girls: seven-year-old Karla and thirteen-year-old Mia Lana. The girl Mia Lana is a seriously ill child from birth on, and suffers from the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which results in severe epilepsy. The girl does not walk, does not talk, does not eat on her own, is completely dependent on the help of another person and has an established one hundred percent disability. For this reason, her mother has a caregiver status and takes care of her on a daily basis.
Due to the complexity of the child’s condition, the whole treatment, examinations and therapies several times a year, the family must perform in Zagreb in several different hospitals. Due to the constant need to go to Zagreb, the family came to an overwhelming difficulty because, due to the condition and weight of the child, a 290 kilometre long travel in their personal car has become impossible.
Eight years ago, her father organized a charity event when Mia Lana needed a surgery in Vienna. It was a stem cell transplant, the family was then also in front of a wall, but a miracle happened and they managed to raise money to go to Vienna. Numerous televisions, journalists, sports clubs, individual donors, organizations helped in a media sense. Even then, the Knezović family was helped by a number of people they had never met in person, and they were immensely grateful for that.
This time, as a big Dinamo fan, her father Davor decided to address his request the Foundation “Nema predaje”. In this touching story for little heroine Mia Lana and her brave family, the Foundation decided to donate a van with a built-in wheelchair ramp.
The emotional handover of the vehicle was on Tuesday in Vukovar in the presence of the Knezović family and representatives of the Foundation “Nema predaje”. At the handover, on behalf of the Manager and the entire Managing Board, the donation was handed over by one of the members of the Board of Trustees, Mrs. Amra Peternel and the office administrator Mrs. Antea Šapina, in the presence of several employees of GNK Dinamo who arrived in Vukovar on the occasion of the end of this beautiful story. Tears, laughter, positivity, words of gratitude and relief for the father, mother and the girls: it is difficult to find the words to the event of the donation handover…
The father, Davor, has an emotional and personal story. He went through a lot in his life, experienced the hell of the war in Vukovar in which he stayed as a 13-year-old child until the last day and went out of the town in that unfortunate convoy when the city was taken in 1991. His father died in Vukovar…
– I have been following our Dinamo, I have been following all of its events, and I saw that the Foundation “Nema predaje” was established, which is helping many people. After some time, we received the answer that our request was approved. We are touched and cannot believe the amount of empathy, care and understanding for our needs by the Foundation. You have driven the vehicle to us in Vukovar. You literally bought legs for our Mia Lana, that’s right, that van is her legs! We cannot find words to thank you, we will be eternally grateful, you have friends in us for the rest of our lives and there is no way we will ever be able to show you our gratitude. We thank the Foundation from the bottom of our hearts – said Davor, the father of the girl Mia Lana, after the handover over the vehicle.
Their struggle to provide the girl Mia Lana with a reasonably normal treatment, functioning and life, and above all their human greatness, is worth admiring. At the beginning of the year, the Knezović family made a donation, within their own capabilities, when the Foundation raised funds to help the residents of the Banovina region after the devastating earthquake.
After helping the Association of Parents of Children with Developmental Disabilities “Vukovarski leptirići” last year, we made new friends with this donation, and the Dinamo Foundation will continue to help people from this region.
Foto: Emica Elvedji/Pixsell/GNK Dinamo
