CANactions is the main architecture event in Ukraine. It is held in Kyiv every year, this year from May 14 to 16. CANactions is a platform for sharing ideas between urbanists, architects, politicians and a wider public. In times of crisis, architecture has an important role to play. It is a mirror and a driver of change in society. 

CANactions is attended by urbanists and architects from Ukraine and other European countries. This year, architects from Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands take part. They hold workshops, give lectures, share ideas and experiences and engage in discussions with a wider public and the media. Politicians and investors are offered the opportunity to get acquainted with contemporary trends in international architecture.

CANactions has been held annually since 2008. In recent years, it has attracted more than 2500 professional attendees and up to 10'000 interested lay people.

In 2015, as in 2014, Switzerland is the main partner of CANactions. There will be workshops and lectures by Swiss architects Sebastian Carella (Valerio Olgiati Architects), Verena Huber (VSI SWB) and Markus Schaefer (Hosoya Schaefer Architects).

More information and festival’s program can be found under: http://www.canactions.com/

Various publications, interviews and videos from CANactions 2014 are available on the website of the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.

The city of Dnepropetrovsk has to accommodate a big number of refugees, among them many people with chronic diseases, for example chronic kidney failure. Such patients depend on a regular treatment with a hemodialysis machine. This is an artificial kidney removing all the toxic substances normally washed out from the blood by the kidneys and transported to the urine. If the kidneys no longer work normally, this task has to be done by an artificial pumping and filtrating system. For this hemodialysis treatment, the patient has to come to the hemodialysis department of a hospital three times a week for four hours.

Dnepropetrovsk municipal hospital Nr.4 is a big hospital with a well-equipped large hemodialysis station. However, this station is calculated for the normal number of patients in the city and its environments, not for the huge additional workload resulting from the big number of refugees with chronic kidney diseases urgently needing treatment with hemodialysis. After a careful evaluation of the situation together with the specialists of Hospital Nr.4, the Humanitarian Aid Section of the Government of Switzerland decided to donate five Hemodialysis Machines and the necessary material to run the equipment to the Hospital. With these machines, at least 30 patients can be treated and thus be prevented from dying of renal failure. Most of those patients so far could only be dialyzed once or twice per week (instead of three times), which leads to a fast decay of general health.

On June 22, 2015 the five Hemodialysis Machines were handed over by representatives of the Swiss Government to the authorities of Dnepropetrovsk Hospital Nr.4.

The total amount of the current Swiss humanitarian assistance in Dnipropetrovsk hospital No 4 is CHF 200 thousand (or more than 4,5 million Ukrainian hryvnia).