“The Noblest Cause”

Since 1993, Belarusian Latter-day Saints have sought to reach out in their communities to improve the lives of their fellow citizens in need. This work is often officially conducted by the International Charitable Public Association (ICPA) “Safia,” a humanitarian organization founded and run by local Church members and sponsored by the Church through LDS Charities. Latter-day Saints from other countries come to Belarus as volunteers for Safia to support its humanitarian mission.

Belarusian Latter-day Saints, ICPA “Safia” volunteers, and guests in Brest make blankets for shelters and orphanages, 2018.

Belarusian Church members began Safia as a local charitable society in the fall of 1993. In 1994 the organization began partnering with other charities and organizations to help vulnerable groups in Belarus through community service, material aid, medical training, wheelchair distribution, and other means. That same year, Mikhail Davydik, a local Church member, stepped away from his career as an architect to head the organization. Working with others, Mikhail helped make Safia a well-respected organization in Belarus. In 1999 ICPA “Safia” was organized to carry on this work.

One of Safia’s ongoing projects is the staging of health fairs for school-age children. Using puppet shows, Safia volunteers educate Belarusian children about the need for healthy living and the dangers of drug use. Tens of thousands of Belarusian children have seen these health fairs since their introduction in 1998.

Safia’s work also brings together Belarusians of different backgrounds for a common purpose. In the early 2000s, Mikhail Davydik and an official in Belarus’s state archival service arranged for Safia to store its humanitarian supplies in an old underground bunker at an archive in Minsk. Noting the bunker’s original military purpose, the official was pleased to note that the facility was given new life by being repurposed for “the most peaceful and noblest cause: humanitarian aid.” Belarusian Latter-day Saints and ICPA “Safia” have carried that cause forward since.