The organization was founded in 1990 by the group of young Kiev mothers who were not happy with what they had seen. They were not happy with their children's diseases, they were not happy with shortages of bread and milk, they did not like forecasts of Dr. Gale, who threatened them with flourishing child cancer 10 years after the Chernobyl disaster.
Information flow that flooded a soviet citizen after the beginning of Perestroika created permanent stress among the population of 1/6 of the Earth. From the other hand, there seems to be no other option to 'decode' this newly created inter-people amalgamation with its collective brain - the Soviet People. About the same time as our organization had been created, it was finally understood that in former USSR counties, e.g., in Ukraine people are a mix of people and these people show wide diversity. However, we had not much time to celebrate this interesting discovery, because personal freedom and governmental control are incompatible in a post- totalitarian country.
The feature demonstrates itself differently in the everyday life : as shortage of elemental goods, as disappearance of cheap goods from sale, as unemployment, as declining public health, as inability to provide a child with health- improvement, as permanent price rise etc., etc. In other words, old soviet social security system, be it good or bad, has died, and no new social security was created. We wouldn't like to discuss in details the reasons for this delay, let's just remember why MAMA 86 had demerged.
Due to the fact that mothers were educated, active and independent, we tried both to carry out targeted assistance to mothers and children and to ensure our conceptual development. It was not an easy task because all the funds for our project we had to find ourselves we neither asked for governmental funds nor accepted them.
How effective are our activities? Judge for yourselves- the independent medical laboratory of MAMA 86 on children examination became operational in 1993. The laboratory uses immunochemiluminiscence technique (patented method of N.I.Yakuba, an Ukrainian paediatrician). Last autumn we obtained Ukrainian Ministry of Public Health certificate. For now we have examined about 2.500 Kiev children and gave them recommendations on health improvement, medical treatment and disease prophylactics.Every year we try to organize health improvement for Kiev mothers with children in remaining environmentally clean regions of Ukraine. Due to our efforts more than 1000 Kiev mothers and children improved their health.
The following projects are under way in MAMA86: EcoHealth, evening kindergarten project, environmental education for pre-schoolers and young schoolchildren, changing consumption and production patterns (environmental aspect).
Mama 86 has no fixed membership. The major activities' directions: society, health and environment, women, children, charity. The organization is a NGO by the fact of creation, is adherent to its independent strategy and tactics for over 5 years, actively participates in the development of new Ukrainian law on NGOs. We are sure that changes in governmental policy and legislative reform (on NGO sector) could not be carried out by extraction of third sector leaders and their transplantation into governmental structures, but rather through development and strengthening of the third sector itself, by the following tools: lobbying, development of discussion culture between non-governmental and governmental representatives, development and disclosure of alternative reports on major directions of social development, work with mass-media.