A 13-YEAR-OLD boy who raised more than a quarter of a million pounds for Ukrainian children has travelled to Poland to meet the refugees who benefitted from his donation.
Gabriel Clark shot to viral fame last April after a quarter of a million people responded to a plea from his dad for people to follow his son’s woodwork Instagram account. Spurred on by support from a raft of celebrities including Stephen Fry and JK Rowling, Gabriel decided to put his newfound fame to good use and raffled off his handmade ‘Bowl for Ukraine’ to raise funds for Save the Children.
Now, a year later, the young woodwork star, who lives in Kirkby Lonsdale, has visited a Ukrainian school in Warsaw funded by the charity, to learn more about the impact of his fundraising.
The school supports more than 450 children from Ukraine aged six to 17 to study the Ukrainian curriculum in their native language, while providing Polish language lessons and helping children integrate into Poland.
Following his visit, Gabriel announced he would be carving a new bowl, called The Hope bowl, with the aim of raising funds for the charity’s Emergency Fund, which supports children in crisis all around the world.
Gabriel said: “Being at the school in Poland and seeing how much the funds raised last year have helped the Ukrainian children there, I just knew I had to do another fundraiser.
“The children at the school were so happy and welcoming to me and they had so many fun games to play. I wish my school was more like it! Meeting the children there was amazing, but also devastating. We had so much in common, but our circumstances are so different.
“I spoke to one ten-year-old boy who plays the drums, like I do, and he also does Taekwondo, which I love. It amazed me because it’s such an unusual sport. It just reminded me that these children are just like any other child, but they’ve been through so much. If there’s any way of helping them and other children who need it, then I think we all should.”
Gabriel’s Hope Bowl took 10 hours to make and includes three types of wood -ash, sapele and zebrano - to represent the three key focuses of Save the Children’s work around the world – education, food and medicine.
11-year-old Karina is one of the many children who attends the Ukrainian school in Warsaw. During Gabriel’s visit to the school, Karina presented him with a painting in traditional Ukrainian colours with the words ‘be brave like Ukraine’ emblazoned on the front.
Karina grew up in Kyiv but fled with her mum and 15-year-old brother when the conflict escalated in March 2022. She describes herself as positive and hard-working and dreams of being an art teacher. But although she enjoys attending the school in Warsaw, for her nothing compares to home. “This is not my home”, she says. “I will not live in Poland forever because I want to go back to my city, my real home. I know that one day I will be in Kyiv again and live many happy years there.”
Gabriel’s new Hope Bowl will raise money for Save the Children’s Emergency Fund. Having already amassed donations of more than £6,000, the funds will go towards helping children in crisis all around the world, from those who have fled Ukraine to those suffering from hunger and malnutrition in East Africa. The draw for Gabriel’s Hope Bowl will close on Friday April 14.
To read more about Gabriel’s Hope bowl and support his fundraising, visit https://www.justgiving.com/page/thehopebowl.
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