January 26, 2023
48,620 people evacuated from danger to date
25 trips into the deoccupied territories
As we approach the end of January, teams persist in their efforts with continued drive, despite their personal exhaustion, both physical and emotional. Our larger teams delivered supplies to 18,000 people and roughly 130 tons of aid last week. After the Dnipro attack, our teams are continuing to assist residents with finding apartments and opening their shelters for families who were impacted. In addition, our teams made 25 harrowing trips into the deoccupied regions this week to deliver aid; they are prioritizing the critical need for heavy blankets, warm clothing, potbelly stoves, light, and generators. Several teams are working on establishing key areas for invincibility points. Kseniia’s NGO rebuilt roofs of 7 village homes as well as a 900 m² roof of a 16-unit apartment building in the Kharkiv region.
Please continue to support our volunteers who go in to help hundreds of Ukrainians even in the depth of winter.
Ukraine Team Milestones
Pavel’s Team - Dotyk Serdtsia (Touch of Heart) and Svitanok Mriy (Dawn of Hope)
Pavel’s team distributed food to 5,470 people in Mykolayiv and ruined villages to the southeast of Mykolayiv, Zasillia, Pervomayske, Novomykolayivka, and Lutch. In Pervomaysk volunteers brought 7 potbelly stoves and firewood to last the families through the winter, along with water filters and flashlights. 4 vans carrying 7 tons of aid and 50 tons by semitrucks were brought to Mykolayiv for further distribution to shelters, boarding schools and charity kitchens. Pavel went on a trip to deoccupied Kharkiv territories around Izium to the villages of Spivakivka and Pidvysoke. Pidvysoke is a special place Pavel prospected earlier. The bridge which had been the main transportation route into the village was destroyed and the village has lived without natural and light for 10 months. The village still has 195 people, among them 8 children, 3 immobile people with disabilities, and a 13 year old with a severe disability.
Oleksandr’s Network of Teams
Pavlo V’s team, together with Крок з надією (Step with Hope) and other volunteer groups, has continued helping around the clock at the site of the Dnipro Tragedy, where a nine-story building was nearly destroyed by a Russian rocket last week. The teams helped all those in need. The teams provided those left without a home with food packages and clothes. Hot tea, coffee, sandwiches and cookies were served at all hours. Residents without electricity received small camping stoves. Power banks are also an important help nowadays, and the team purchased power stations and generators.
Pavlo V’s team also continued to deliver bread to the most affected sections of the population in the Dnipropetrovsk Region and to Druzhkivka, Kostantinivka and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk Region. All three Donetsk areas experience regular cuts to electricity, water and gas supply. Enemy shelling is frequent. In Kostyantynivka and Kramatorsk, residents live with the constant fear of invasion.
Oleksandr S’ team in Boyarka provided assistance to war victims in the Nova Basan and Novy Bykiv villages and in the Nizhyn District of the Chernihiv Region. An invincibility point was also set up in a church basement in Konotop in the Sumy Region. Working with local farmers, the team also distributed food assistance to 300 displaced persons from the east of Ukraine.
Vladyslav K’s team delivered 23 tons of drinking water to Mykolaiv. The team also hands out 900 loaves of bread, clothes and hygiene items every week at a local church.
Sandra S in Odesa has a new, large industrial stove for her kitchen, which has allowed her to increase the number of food portions she serves daily – this week the kitchen fed 2,100 people, including bed-bound patients.
In addition to helping Sandra in Odesa, Yury S delivered more than 1 ton of humanitarian aid to Kherson and evacuated a family from Kherson to Odesa.
Andriy P, based in Chernivtsi is on his way back from Germany with a jeep and a T4 bus for the armed forces, both of which are loaded with humanitarian aid. Andriy’s son in law Mykhailo has meanwhile been delivering aid to church distribution centers in Mykolaiv and Bashtanka. The 20 tons of aid include wood stoves, canned food, beds, mattresses and hygiene items.
Oksana K’s team in Lutsk provided assistance to 25 families of IDPs, disabled people, and military personnel. Additionally, she received 2 tons of humanitarian aid from Poland, which will be transported to the Kherson Region by Andrii P.
NGO "Star of Hope" director Oleksandr Z conducted art therapy classes and assistance for displaced children and children of large families. His organization also provided glasses to four large families.
Viktor V in Lutsk brought a cargo of medical supplies from Germany. These will eventually make their way to where they’re needed most, probably the Kherson Region and other eastern locations.
Kseniia’s NGO - Livyj Bereh
This week Kseniia's team fixed the roofs of 7 single-family homes and one apartment building.
Since March, the apartment building in Slatine had been under constant shelling, but in June there was a direct hit to the roof. There are still holes from the explosions near the house and the windows of the building are broken. Due to the destruction, the roof of the building leaked for a long time, damaging apartments and ruining people's property. High humidity in the house led to fungus and mold in apartments, swelling of the floor, and damage to wallpaper and furniture. Some residents continued to live in these conditions, including Grandfather Anatolij who would not leave the village. Replacing the roof, while challenging especially in the harsh winter weather, helped people to return to their homes.
Darya, a fearless volunteer from Kharkiv, made two daring trips to the very edge of Ukrainian deoccupied territories to the village of Synkivka.
Svetlana leading another team from Kherson helped 595 families, in the villages of Krupytsia, Tokarivka, Ivanivka and Tiagynka.
Natasha’s Team - Vysnia Volunteer Center
Natasha Mitsuta once again took 300 large food packages into the deoccupied zones miles away from the frontline. She left 40 packages in Lyman as well as some blankets and clothing. The situation in Lyman deteriorated with gunfire constantly ringing in the distance across the frontline.
Natalia then went to the village of Yampil, where the team distributed the remaining 260 packages at three different distribution points. Most of the people still living in the village are elderly. Natasha noted that, in spite of the proximity to danger, people receiving help here expressed gratitude and refused to take things others might need more than they do. This solemn and orderly picture is a contrast with chaotic distributions sometimes taking place in less dangerous place, where people coming for help argue amongst themselves and with the volunteers. Despite extreme physical exhaustion, Natalia said that the trip this time “filled her” with a sense of purpose.
Timur’s Team — Timur and Team
This week the team delivered aid both near and far including over 1,600 total packages. They delivered hundreds to Saltivka and Starroverovka near Kharkiv. The heaviest lift was the trip to Kivsharivka in the Kupiansk Region where they provided aid for over a thousand people. The area was liberated by the Ukrainian army several months ago, but is only 10 miles from the front line today and sees plenty of danger. It does not receive much aid, and Timur plans to head back in the near future.
The team will regroup in Kharkiv and restock on hygiene supplies and flashlights that are in high demand everywhere in the region.
Marina’s Team - Give Good Ukraine
Along with their usual food distribution in their centers in Piatykhatky, Vyshnivska and Zhovty Vody, they started to provide free legal help and consultation for internally displaced people and all others who suffered from war. Marina's team also handed products over to the Center for the provision of social services of the Piatykhatky territorial community where internally displaced citizens live and eat, and where foster families and family-type children's homes get support. This center is one of the warming centers, "Points of Invincibility" - places where there is light, water, and heat, so people can warm up, drink tea, charge phones, and rest during power outages.
Slava’s Team — E Volunteer
Last week we started supporting a small new volunteer team “E Volunteer” headed by Slava Kedr - a stand-up artist in a previous life turned volunteer leader. We met Slava through Kseniia, extending our trustchain one link further. Last week with our support Slava traveled to Bahmut itself. Due to the dangerous situation there, they could not stay long enough to distribute the aid they brought and had to move to Siversk, where the situation is also extremely difficult.
Andriy’s Team - BF Pomahaem
94 people continued to live in Andriy’s shelter. Like other Dnipro teams based around Dnipro “Pomahaem” mobilized to help the victims of the Dnipro attack, opening the doors of their shelters to the survivors. Meanwhile, Andriy’s team delivered 20 tons of aid around Dnipro and Zaporizhzhya. Over the last two weeks UTC and BF Pomahaem have finalized the details on 2 major initiatives helping displaced families with children that we will be reporting on in the coming weeks.
In addition, UTC helped to to purchase 120 pairs of glasses for children that Pomahaem served; these are children with disabilities and those coming from multi-children households. Parents shared with Andriy’s foundation that, since glasses are expensive, they had been saving on repairing their children’s glasses, some of which had been damaged during evacuation, and opted instead to try to fix the old and broken ones on their own. Now, thanks to your generous support, these children will be able to see.
Karina’s Team — We Save Dnipro
Karina has been incredibly busy since the tragedy in Dnipro finding new apartments for the people who lost theirs in the attack. So far they have placed 26 families, with 9 more apartments waiting for their occupants to be released from the hospital. Some of the families that were killed or injured in the attack had already lost their pre-war homes in Mariupol and other places. This family left Kramatorsk after the horrible attack on the train station there, and is now getting settled in their new apartment thanks to the generous support of our donors and our partner Project Kesher.
There are 94 people currently in the shelter, but it is in the process of restructuring. Unfortunately, a few longer term residents had to be evicted due to overindulging in alcohol.
In addition to all this, Karina still manages to push aid in the Kherson, Soledar, and Bakhmut directions, sending generators and fuels to a daycare center used as a bomb shelter in Konstantynovka, a charging station to a maternity ward in the Zaporizhzhya region, and a medical aspirator to the Korabelisha Hospital in Kherson.
Inna’s Team - Krok z Nadiyeyu
During last week Inna’s team delivered 28 tons of aid to 13,500 people across 30 locations. At the turn of the week the city Dnipro - which is the base for Inna’s organization – was still in shock after Russia’s terrorist attack that destroyed a residential highrise in the city. Inna’s team “Krok z Nadiyeyu” became a key organization that provided assistance to the survivors of this inhuman crime. Within a few hours from the attack the team set up volunteer tents, where 300-500 survivors could get daily food and hot tea, plastic to cover the windows and help from volunteers to board up the shattered doors and window sills. Meanwhile, the distributions to more than 1,100 people continued at other Dnipro locations.
In other regions Inna’s team made two trips to the Kherson region, two - Donetsk region and three to a deoccupied town in Kharkiv region. In the Donetsk region the situation is particularly dire. Water is brought to these towns once a week; our volunteers shared that some of the people receiving aid were moved to tears by the fact that someone remembered to help them.
Dina’s Team — Vilny Lyudi - Vylna Kraina
This week Dina’s team distributed 760 packages of food aid and 95 gifts to children, as well as clothes, diapers, and pet food. Everything except the food was donated by other volunteers and organizations, and we only helped finance the shipping.
One of the volunteers of Dina’s organization, Lena recently married a soldier defending Ukraine in the Bakhmut area. We learned this week that Sergey, Lena’s husband, was wounded and sent to the hospital in Dnipro. Lena was able to travel to be with him and he just got discharged to recover at home.
Sergey is getting ready to travel to Lyman again next week with more potbelly stoves generously provided by our partner Bird of Light Ukraine, as well as candles, matches, medicine, warm blankets, and food.
We are happy to report that Dina is finally taking a well-deserved and long-overdue vacation. While Vylni Lyudi Vylna Kraina (Free Country Free People) continues to operate and distribute aid in 5 different cities, Dina is going to visit some friends in Europe and try to take a day off for the first time in nearly a year. The war is taking a huge mental, physical, and emotional toll on the volunteers and we feel that it is our responsibility to support them, not only financially, but in less tangible ways as well.
Tetiana’s Team - Dopomoha Poruch
This week Tetiana’s team continued distributing aid to refugees in Smila. In addition to that, Tetiana contacted city administration and hand-delivered aid to 45 elderly and individuals with disabilities. The local social services department is devastated with layoffs and lack of funding during the war, and Tetiana is planning to start regularly helping these people as they are in truly dire circumstances with nowhere else to turn for help.
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