28th February 2022, Dorset, England.
A 10-year-old boy named Luca returned home from school, having discussed about the armed conflict in Ukraine that had recently started.
Instead of doing his homework, Luca grabbed a napkin and imagined himself in the shoes of a Ukrainian child.
– Mummy, mummy, we have to do something to help them! Said Luca, as he handed over the composition to his mum.
Those words turned Grace, Luca’s mom, into an army general, with a mission to develop a response to her son’s request.
But Grace was not alone. So, for the following seven weeks, she gathered around her a proper army of people supporting this amazing initiative named Packed with Hope.
18th April 2022, Suceava, Romania.
Grace and a small part of the people that have supported her in the journey have landed in Suceava airport, for a week that was about to change not only their lives but also provide important resources for over 10,000 Ukrainian refugee children that are either residing or passing through Romanian borders.
All 10,000 backpacks that have reached Romania all the way from the U.K. are packed with goodies, essential items and educational books in Ukrainian for children, spread over 4 age groups: 0-4, 4- 8, 8 – 12, 12-16 years old. Resources within each backpack come from a variety of companies, including Hewlett Packard and an international publisher that, in record time, translated and printed a mother tongue book for children fleeing away from the war.
But above all, each and every one of those backpacks are Packed with Hope and carry a bit of Luca in them, as Luca inspired over 10,000 British children to write an honest thought of support for Ukrainian children to find within each and every backpack.
Grace (Little Toller Books ltd), Kevin Duffy (Bluemoose Books), Inna Bilonozhko, Ania Osipenko, Lucas Simon, Zoe Fox and Horatio Clare is the entire group that throughout the course of the past week have reached the hearts of hundreds of refugee children across Suceava. And this is only the start of it all.
It has been an intense week for everyone involved with amazing results:
Over 200 children across Suceava county have been delivered backpacks by Grace herself
Schoolinabag (Luke and Zoe) successfully equipped over 300 children, both in Ukraine and Romania, and set them ready for school
Packed with Hope spent two days at the border of Siret
And our promise, as their partner on the ground, is that a Packed with Hope backpack shall reach every Ukrainian refugee child that will pass through Romanian borders and every child that needs hope, now more than ever.
Our special thanks go to award winning writer and journalist Horatio Clare that has gone the extra mile, travelling in one of the lorries with the backpacks, to document it all, for a specially commissioned radio program for the BBC and for the Financial Times.
Every Ukrainian child is entitled to our support, protection, care and above all – our love.
In the news:
BBC - Ukraine war: Refugee children to be sent 10,000 aid backpacks
BBC - Ukraine war: UK publishers take gifted books to children
Over 2 months of war
Te Aud Romania has offered logistical, financial and humanitarian support over 850,000 Euros, ever since the Ukrainian refugee crisis has started. All of this was made possible with support from individual donors, as well as a high number of national and international partners that have joined our endeavours.
As a charity focused on non-formal educational programs for children, we will work alongside national and international partners to develop medium to long term solutions to integrate Ukrainian refugee children within the community and provide a safe and appropriate environment to alleviate the pain and grow.
Our response in figures
Sneak peak into our coming month
May 2022 will continue with the distribution of our fully equipped schoolbags in schools where Ukrainian refugees started to study.
Furthermore, „Steps towards the future” program is taking place in several schools and encourage children to discover more about themselves.
We are organizing a series of summer events - for both Ukrainian refugees and children from our communities: sports events and the International English Summer Camp, among others.
Links:
February 2022. The worst seemed behind us, and no one could have ever imagined something even worse than a pandemic. And the Ukrainian armed conflict emerged.
Located within 70 kms of the Ukrainian border, we have taken on, from the very beginning, the role of support organisation from everyone fleeing away from the conflict.
Whilst the first two weeks of our Ukrainian refugee crisis have been focused on providing immediate response solutions, coordination mechanisms have now started to work and whilst we are still continuing to provide immediate solutions to various situations, we are now at the same time, directing our attention to the development of medium to long term solutions. Because we are all in this within the long run.
Within the past month, TAR invested over 50,000 Euros as a response to the crisis. Our support has taken various forms, based on the correlated need from the ground: immediate response and support for individual refugee situations, accommodation within refugee centres, equipping refugee centres with necessary items, development of transit, baby and children kits, medicine and other medical necessities, transports over the border to support those still left in Ukraine and so on.
Te Aud Romania has offered logistical, financial and humanitarian support over 50,000 Euros, ever since the Ukrainian refugee crisis has started. All of this was made possible with support from individual donors, as well as a high number of national and international partners that have joined our endeavours.
As a charity focused on non-formal educational programs for children, we will work alongside national and international partners to develop medium to long term solutions to integrate Ukrainian refugee children within the community and provide a safe and appropriate environment to alleviate the pain and grow.
SNEAK PEAK INTO OUR COMING MONTH
April 2022 shall mark the start of the distribution of our fully equipped schoolbags in schools where Ukrainian refugees started to study.
At the same time, alongside UK partners and institutional national partners, we shall provide the Siret border with over 10,000 goody transit bags for children, in accordance to age, as they cross the border.
Whilst we are constantly working on further integration measures and lifelong support.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Te Aud Romania (TAR) has rather quickly turned into a support organisation for Ukrainian refugees and we want to thank everyone that decided to join us on this journey.
Our charity has its main offices 70 kms from one of the borders and we are committed to create a response fund and provide ongoing support to facilitate their stay in the region for as long as necessary.
The past week has probably been one of the hardest weeks we have experienced in a long time. A time of incredible stress, constant dynamic and change and above all, a time of support.
This is a short update on our activity on the ground for the past week:
There is still a lot more to be done. Besides all of the above mentions, there is a constant need of hygiene products and baby products. We are on the look out for partners to put together personal care kits for women refugees and for their children, whether on the move or asylum seekers in Romania. These people need them now more than ever. One cannot even imagine what they are going through.
We aim to keep you posted as much as we can, whilst at the same time we want to protect the exposure of the refugees, considering the dramatic situation they are facing.
Amidst everything that is going on at the moment, we continue to run our programs as usual and take care of the ones within our regional community as well.
On the 5th March, the first rugby tag tournament from our Mini Rugby for all program took place in the village of Berchisesti, Suceava. With the support of the Romanian Rugby Federation and the county division for sport and youth, we have gathered together almost 100 children, aged 6 – 10, from 6 rural schools in Suceava county for a very fun and engaging indoor sport day. The event was facilitated by the School in Berchisesti and support from local sports teachers.
At the same time, the first week of March brought with itself group counselling activities for the rural schools in Dolhestii Mari and Dolhestii Mici, Suceava county. Children aged 6 to 16 years old have learned about bullying and its negative effects, as well as ways to nurture and develop a high self esteem from a young age.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Dear friend,
After such a long period of us being in touch, I think we should all agree we have moved on to the next step in our relationship and we can be called friends.
I have just returned from a European women empowerment community program in Lisbon a few days ago and I found my little town snowed under; with Xmas lights installed all across town - already feeling the holiday atmosphere all around. And straght away my thoughts have headed towards all the children we support - children and youngsters that much need attention and most times they do not receive it, as they should.
My thoughts immediately jumped to Alex. Alex is one of the youngsters we support on a regular basis through our personal development program and last month we noticed that his posts on social media are in a state of complete sadness, moodiness and loss of interest towards day to day activities; some of them would even be morbid.
We immediately took action and signed Alex up for an intervention with our therapist. He was diagnosed with mild depression, whilst sometimes admitting his posts on social media are more directed at gaining attention. A tense family situation is what caused Alex to dramatically change the way he looks at life recently.
There are many times in life when we all feel hopeless, helpless and in deep emotional pain. But no youngster should be without support.
There are many more youngsters like Alex. We currently have 40 youngsters within our individual and group counselling support programme. And with your help in the future we can reach more and more youngsters that, at times, feel overwhelmed with the changes going on in their lives.
And we thank you for that!
Gabriela @ Te Aud Romania
Dear supporter,
We hope you are well and you are managing to stay afloat amidst these rough times we are all passing through.
As we all know, children probably are the most vulnerable to these constant changes and instability we are facing. We are continuously doing our best to support our most vulnerable groups and create activities for them to help them through these challenges.
As part of our constant efforts, we have been coordinating this week an English Summer Camp for over 60 orphans, in partnership with a Swiss charity called WeTomorrow. During this week, WeTomorrow volunteers have conducted English classes, educational and sport activities for orphans in the area. In the afternoon, all volunteers have helped transform a mundane meeting room into one of the best educational centres for orphans. The room has been equipped with desks, 8 laptops, a videoprojector, bookshelves, and a nice castle with stairs for them to relax and read. We aim to fill all of the bookshelves with over 1000 books for children aged 6 - 18.
It has been a hectic week for everyone involved within the project. Om Saturday, the 14th August we will conduct the handover ceremony, where the WeTomorrow group will present their work of this week.
The multimedia centre will serve over 120 orphans on a regular basis and we are most delighted that we could offer them such an opportunity.
You are more than happy to join in our project and support with whatever you can. Every small step in the right direction counts.
You can find a small sneak peak at the work volunteers conducted this week.
Again, thank you and happy weekend everyone.
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