Karyna ZHYRONKINA represented Ukraine at Miss World 2012. For her Beauty With a Purpose project, she frequently donated her time to a local orphanage in her home city of Kharkiv. A loving individual, Karyna would play games, help to feed, and provide a motherly or sisterly role for the unfortunate children who have lost their parents.

Below in her words, is Karyna’s Project.

I was born in Kharkiv, a big active and little city.

Colourful, fast, diverse, it will always be my hometown, because this is where I grew up surrounded by love and care. Maybe because of this I have a great desire to help those children deprived of parental love, just to share part of my heart.

Each trip to the orphanage, every meeting with these children, is priceless.

By giving the heart, seeing the smiles on children’s faces, one feels like the world is changing. When someone starts dreaming about becoming a model artist, actor, athlete, beauty queen, my aim is to show kids that any, even the most improbable dreams come true, but one has to believe to not be afraid to go ahead next to each other.

The great writer Dostoevsky said that “beauty will save the world”, but I believe that the world will be saved by love.