By Anastasia Lapteva | Project coordinator
Our dear friends, we would like to share updates on our project.
On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine. Cities were subjected to numerous shelling. Thousands of people across Ukraine left their homes. Some stayed at home with small children in fear and horror of shelling. People run to bomb shelters, spending nights there.
According to the statistics, 15 million of Ukrainians were displaced from their homes. 3 million went abroad, and 12 million became internally displaced, moving to safer places of Ukraine.
Since the war started the scale of our project grew a few times more. We’ve been receiving many requests from families to help them move to the Western part of Ukraine or abroad, to help find the place to stay, to provide with basic things, as most of them were running, just carrying children, with almost no belongings.
It became our non-stop activity, days and nights. As a result, during this first month of the war, we evacuated 50 Ukrainian families, mainly from the capital of Kyiv and the Kyiv region. 26 of them went abroad, being transported by us to the Polish and Romanian border, accommodated on the way and supported with the basic things. 24 families were brought to the Western part of Ukraine and keep receiving our help on a daily base: humanitarian aid, integration and consultation help, solving practical issues. And we keep getting calls for help from more and more families.
Having established cooperation with the local administration in the western Ukraine, the Women's Federation provides assistance with medications, food and bedding for internally displaced people. Also, members of the women's federation, as volunteers, weave protective nets and help with the unloading of humanitarian aid in the local administration.
We were especially worrying for two families in Bucha City, in Kyiv oblast, who were sitting in the basement for two weeks, with no electricity and almost no connection. There were four adults and five children, including 2-months old baby. Bucha City was occupied by Russian troops, and there was almost no way to get out. We got a call for help from them, and tried to rescue them a few times, but in vain.
Finally, they managed to use the green corridor and could get out to the Kyiv railway station. We brought them from there to the Polish border and helped to get settled in Germany. That two families became a part of our integration work, receiving psychological help online, adults and children. Vika, mother of three small children, who had to feed her 2-months baby in the shelter for two weeks, shares: “My children are still afraid of tanks when they hear the helicopters sound. I explain to them that we are safe here, that tanks do not drive or shoot here. But it probably takes time for them to calm down…”
We pray for Ukraine every day. And we are very grateful to each one of you for your prayes and practical support.
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