Emergency fund for Ukraine: 45,000 people need us

Since the outbreak of the war, SOS Children's Villages has contributed to the evacuation of 30,000 people (unaccompanied children and families with children in their care) from the regions most affected by the conflict and their transfer to safe areas within the country.

Once displaced people feel relatively safe, they need support to help themselves. Aldeas provides them with material assistance, from food to devices to follow online classes and cash assistance to the most vulnerable families. Throughout the year, more than 23,000 families received financial support and food vouchers.

Similarly, 628 children wounded in the war have accessed the rehabilitation program created by SOS Children's Villages.

Since the beginning of the war, SOS Children's Villages has assisted 32,500 people inside Ukraine. Despite having had to temporarily suspend its activities in the Kiev and Lugansk regions for security reasons, and having already resumed them in the former, the organization has not ceased to respond to the new and growing needs of children and families through its Emergency Response, Family Strengthening and Foster Care programs.

Aldeas, which has been working in Ukraine since 2003, has recently opened three Social Centers in Uzhgorod, Chernihiv and Dnipro, where it provides family counseling, psychosocial therapy, food, medicine, non-food items, financial assistance to foster families and referrals to other organizations, in addition to offering leisure activities and forming mutual support groups.

Since April, it has also had mobile teams providing psychosocial support and mental health services to displaced children and their caregivers in three locations within the Lviv region and two in the Zakarpattia region, where they receive individual and group therapy focused on trauma treatment.

Since the Russian invasion, Villages has continued to facilitate relocation from dangerous areas to the west. A total of 112 foster families, most of them with children with disabilities in their care, have been evacuated out of the country in the last month.

Moreover, the family strengthening services that the organization continues to offer in Stanytsia Luganska and Starobilsk (in the Lugansk region) are conducted online and include psychological support and cash assistance.

SOS Children's Villages Ukraine's participation in a consortium of six local organizations has enabled it to provide services to families with internally displaced children, both in transit and at destination. These families receive temporary shelter, food, hygiene and basic necessities, financial assistance and short-term psychosocial care.

With one of these partners, the Ukrainian Educational Platform, Aldeas operates near Lviv station in a Child Friendly Space, a warm and safe place with capacity for 40 people where children play and participate in play and educational activities while their mothers receive information and guidance.

Links:

• Our web site

With all the funds we are raising from Aldeas España, we are supporting the Emergency Response Program that Aldeas at international level has launched in Ukraine. The objective of this program is to prevent family separation during displacement and provide shelter, food, hygiene products and psychological support to families and children in need. In addition, we are focusing our efforts on caring for unaccompanied children by ensuring a safe and protective environment and helping them identify their families for reunification.

Since the war began in Ukraine, humanitarian needs inside and outside the country have skyrocketed, affecting more than 12 million people, 3 of whom are children. To date, Aldeas has assisted 34,647 people: 32,500 children and families inside Ukraine and provided alternative care and humanitarian assistance to 2,147 refugees in different European countries.

Links:

• https://www.aldeasinfantiles.es/dona/ucrania