What is WOŚP?

The largest non-governmental charity in Poland. One day a year the whole country — and the Polish diaspora worldwide — raises money to equip children's hospitals.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (in Polish Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy, WOŚP) is a Polish foundation founded in 1993. Its goal is simple to describe and hard to achieve: to buy medical equipment for hospitals, above all children’s hospitals, and deliver it where it is needed most.

How it works

Every year, on a Sunday in January, the Grand Finale takes place — the day the money is raised. Thousands of volunteers go out with collection tins and red heart stickers. At the same time, concerts, auctions, workshops and charity runs are organised in hundreds of towns. In the evening, at 20:00, comes the Światełko do nieba — the little light to the sky — a symbolic moment that closes the day.

Each edition has a specific goal announced in advance: one year it is paediatric surgery, another oncology and haematology, another diagnostic equipment. The money buys concrete devices, and the Foundation later publishes the list of what was bought and which hospital received it.

What that buys

An example with numbers, because it sounds more concrete than any declaration. In the spring of 2020, from the intervention fund set up for the pandemic, the Foundation ordered for Polish hospitals 200 intensive care beds, 157 cardiac monitors, 47 ventilators, 25 ultrasound scanners and a million surgical masks. That help alone passed 25 million zloty. The list of what was bought and which hospital got it is published on the Foundation’s site.

What a sztab is

The fundraising is not run by a central office but by hundreds of local teams called sztab. A sztab can form in a school, a town hall, an association — or, as in our case, among the Polish community in another country. Each sztab organises its own final: finds the venue, invites the artists, coordinates the volunteers.

We are the Madrid sztab. We play together with all of Poland, on the same day, for the same goal.

Why a red heart

The heart sticker is the receipt for a donation and at the same time the most recognisable symbol of the whole event. In Poland, on Finale Sunday, you see it on half the country’s lapels.

Where the money goes

The fundraising is run entirely by the WOŚP Foundation, which accounts publicly for every edition. We never process payments — our role is to organise the event in Madrid and point people to the official channels.