By CARE's Writing Team | CARE
UKRAINE
One year later, the land and people of Ukraine bear scars from the conflict
Introduction
February 24, 2023, marks one year since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. The fighting has had severe consequences in Ukraine and around the world. In one year, more than 8,000 civilians in Ukraine have died and nearly 13,300 civilians have been injured. Persistent gunfire and explosions have forced 8 million people to seek refuge in neighboring countries, including Poland, Romania and Slovakia. In addition, an estimated 5.4 million people have been internally displaced, of whom 58% have been displaced for six months or more. Fighting has wreaked havoc on Ukraine’s infrastructure, including its energy grid and critical health facilities. Targeted missile and drone attacks in October and November 2022 left millions of Ukrainians without heat, electricity or running water – just as winter was approaching. On average, two health centers have been damaged or destroyed every day since the conflict began – with nearly 220 hospitals destroyed in the past year. In Mariupol alone, eight out of 10 health centers are now damaged or destroyed.
This trauma has had a devastating impact on the children of Ukraine. An estimated five million children have been displaced within and outside Ukraine in this past year, and nearly 500 children have been killed and 1,000 injured. Many children have been separated from one or both parents, and most children are now a year behind in school, as 2,528 schools have been damaged or destroyed. This past year will leave a long, dark shadow for the children of Ukraine, who have become accustomed to the sound of gunfire and bombs.
The Ukraine conflict also has caused ripple effects well beyond Europe, tipping an already fragile world into a widespread hunger crisis. Before the conflict, Ukraine and Russia were the breadbasket of the world, accounting for a significant portion of grain supplies to sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and elsewhere. The conflict also has disrupted the supply of fertilizer and fuel that farmers around the world need to grow their crops. Hunger was a crisis for millions of people even before the onset of the conflict in Ukraine. Today a record 345 million people face food insecurity – an increase of 46 million since 2020.
In response to this tragedy, CARE launched a comprehensive response in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Over the past year, we have built a robust network of partners throughout the region to provide lifesaving assistance to conflict-affected families and to help them meet their most urgent needs, while also ensuring that they can continue to live with dignity and hope as they begin rebuilding their lives. The following report provides a summary of the ways CARE and our partners have assisted affected communities over the past year.
Humanitarian Response
In Ukraine, CARE's response is guided by two of our foundational commitments – to support local solutions and to place women and girls at the center of our emergency response. So far, 77% of CARE’s funding for Ukraine has been channeled through our local partners, with CARE providing critical technical, administrative and programmatic support to organizations already on the ground to ensure that we reach the greatest number of people efficiently and effectively. Together, we have reached nearly 990,000 people in Ukraine and neighboring countries through cash assistance; food; health services; support for accommodation; protection of women and girls; education; psychosocial support; and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) goods and services.
CARE’s commitment to gender sets us apart from other international organizations responding to the crisis in Ukraine. Humanitarian crises affect women and girls differently from men and boys. This is especially true of the refugee crisis associated with the conflict in Ukraine. As the men are obliged to stay and fight, women bear the responsibility of ensuring the health, safety and well-being of children and elderly relatives. CARE, in collaboration with U.N. Women, released rapid gender analysis reports in March and May 2022 highlighting the distinct needs of women and girls which then informed not only CARE’s response strategy, but also that of our peers. The reports were cited widely and used by multiple humanitarian actors. CARE also released special action grants to provide flexible funding for women-led organizations responding to the crisis in April. Throughout the past year, CARE has ensured that the needs and concerns of women and girls are front and center, integrating gender into all our cross-cutting programs.
Ukraine
An estimated 5.4 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine, with many families staying in temporary collective centers set up in schools, gyms and churches. According to the U.N., these collective centers grew from 160 in 2021 to 7,200 today. Often, these spaces are ill-equipped to provide safe and dignified long-term accommodation – particularly in winter. Nearly a quarter of the people staying in collective centers are children – and 7% are children under 5 years old. Several of CARE’s partners work directly with the collective centers to ensure the safety, health and dignity of displaced people. Our holistic approach seeks to address the full range of a displaced person’s needs, including psychosocial support. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, about 15 million Ukrainians will need psychological help in the next few years. Almost 90% of people who responded to a survey by the Ministry of Health responded that they have shown at least one sign of post-traumatic stress disorder.
To date, CARE has reached 752,789 people in Ukraine, including 650,162 through cross-border programming from Poland and Romania. CARE works closely with a network of 22 partners, most of which are Ukrainian-run organizations, including several that are led by women. Each partner brings their own set of expertise and resources that enrich the overall response. For example, Vostok SOS supports collective centers with furniture and appliances; the Ukrainian Women’s Fund provides psychosocial support for displaced people and traumatized volunteers; and Tyova Opora has been providing technical support and medical equipment for the Kyiv State Clinical Hospital.
Over the past year, CARE and our partners have reached 539,262 people with food and improved nutritional security. We also have provided healthcare services to 162,818 people through support for existing medical facilities as well as mobile clinics. CARE has reached 192,500 people in Ukraine with improved access to WASH through distribution of hygiene kits, emergency water trucking and other related activities.
CARE also co-leads a number of international task forces, including the Regional Gender Task Force and Action Team for Regional Gender Analysis (led by CARE and U.N. Women) as well as the WASH Gender and Inclusion Working Group (co-led by CARE and UNICEF). In a volatile environment where safety and security concerns can change by the day, CARE conducts regular access assessments and is developing a Real-time Review system to monitor the humanitarian operations within Ukraine. Importantly, the most recent access assessment revealed that security protocols in place are now sufficient to deploy more staff to high-risk areas where emergency actions are critically needed – especially during winter.
Poland
Poland has been the primary destination for the majority of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict. CARE has partnered with Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM), ADRA Polska, Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH) and other organizations to reach 111,759 people in Poland. In the past year, CARE has supported nearly 2,000 survivors of violence with psychosocial support (including self-defense classes), while we provided more than 5,000 women with sexual and reproductive health services and/or support and protection for those affected by gender-based violence (GBV), thanks to partnerships with civil society organizations. CARE has provided multipurpose cash assistance to about 10,000 individuals, while more than 5,000 have received food assistance. More than 7,500 refugees have benefited from livelihoods assistance, including legal and job counseling, translation of documents and registration for social assistance provided by Polish authorities. CARE’s partners support the integration of refugees in Polish society by offering language courses, housing, administrative assistance and referral paths for the most vulnerable.
Alongside ADRA Polska and PAH, CARE has supported 48 refugee centers across Poland, reaching 27,468 people. CARE’s support helps ensure that the shelters are dispersed throughout the country – not just concentrated along borders and in major cities – and that they make use of existing infrastructure. One example of this is Ukrainian House, a cultural center in the border town of Przemysl that turned into an impromptu consulate in the early days of the conflict with the support of CARE and PAH.
Currently, 190,000 children from Ukraine are attending Polish schools. Many of them struggle with language barriers, psychological distress and cultural integration. In response, CARE partnered with the PCPM to hire more than 800 teachers and education staff to assist 40,000 children with primary school lessons in Ukrainian and Russian. This program employs women refugees to teach children, which helps put the children at ease and provide consistent livelihoods for refugee families.
Slovakia
CARE’s teams also are working with two organizations in Slovakia to provide protection and psychosocial support for Ukrainian refugees as they process the trauma they have experienced this year. To date, we have reached 770 people directly and 75,365 people indirectly in Slovakia. EQUITA, a civil society organization that works closely with the Intervention Team of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, has been working with CARE to provide emergency mobile medical support and GBV protection and care along the border with Ukraine. CARE also has partnered with Italian organization HelpCode, which specializes in providing education and training for children with innovative, practical solutions that improve their physical and mental well-being.
Romania
Since February 2022, 3.3 million Ukrainians have crossed the border into Romania and almost 110,000 have stayed in Romania for the long term, including 48,000 children. From early March through February 2023, CARE reachedmore than 80,000 people in Romania, as well as 66,000 in Ukraine through cross-border assistance.
CARE is working with our longtime partner SERA and the Federation of Child Protection NGOs (FONPC, a consortium of 80 organizations), to help affected families. Together, we have delivered relief items, including diapers and blankets, at a key border crossing and trained 900 clinicians in emergency psychosocial support in border areas to help refugees process and overcome the trauma of war and displacement. As in Poland, CARE and our partners also are making Romanian language classes available to promote refugee integration into host communities. In September 2022, CARE conducted a survey of Ukrainian refugees participating in CARE partner programming, and the three key areas of concern were livelihoods, access to healthcare, and integration into Romanian society. Moving forward, CARE will work closely with our partners to ensure that we are able to meet the needs of conflict-affected families in an equitable way.
In Moldova, CARE has established partnerships with three organizations with national reach and programs focused on disability inclusion and protection: Keystone Moldova, Women’s Law Center and Memoria. These organizations have been involved since the outset of the crisis and are all engaged with humanitarian coordination and advocacy structures in Moldova.
Germany
CARE’s team has supported the integration of Ukrainian refugees in Germany. To date, CARE Germany has distributed 7,700 school starter kits to refugee children all over the country. CARE is also working with six local organizations to provide financial support for refugee families. Eligible families can receive monthly multi-purpose cash assistance to help them cover the costs of their basic needs and support their integration into their host communities in Germany. CARE also works with specialized partners to address the needs of third-country nationals (such as non-Ukrainian citizens who were living in Ukraine but had to flee when the conflict broke out) and the LGBTQ+ community. For example, CARE works with the African Youth Enlightenment and Empowerment Association (AYEESSI e.V.) in Munich and Cagintua e.V. in Bad Belzig and Potsdam to ensure the rights of refugees coming from Africa. In Berlin, CARE works with VIE e.V. Casa Kuá to ensure the health and safety of the trans and queer community arriving from Ukraine.
Human Interest Story: Waking Up Screaming
When the fighting started in Ukraine, all the shops closed. Very quickly, food and other essentials became scarce. Natalia, a 35-year-old mother, remembers the last time she attempted to wait in a line for bread in her hometown of Chornobaivka in southern Ukraine. “The village was under heavy fire and active fighting,” she says. “Villagers who tried to flee were shot.” She remembers seeing puddles of blood in the street and deciding that it was no longer safe to leave the house. What scares Natalia even more than the bombs and the gunshots are her daughter’s screams at night. Daria is 3 years old and has not spoken since the fighting broke out.
Natalia and her family were eventually evacuated to Odesa, where they are staying in temporary accommodations that are supported by CARE’s partner Wind of Change. With a therapist’s help, Natalia's daughter is adapting to their new, quieter life.
Tetyana Butko, a mobile team doctor, provides psychosocial and medical assistance to families in need daily. As a woman who also fled the war, she understands the needs of families such as Natalia’s. It is hard for her emotionally, as she communicates with people who have left everything behind to save their lives and the lives of their children. “Many have absolutely nothing left,” says Tetyana. “They need everything, starting from underwear. They need medical and psychological help. They need access to education and entertainment.”
Natalia dreams of hearing her daughter, Daria, speak again. And she believes that someday Daria will laugh again and maybe be able to sleep through the night, without waking up from her screams.
Funding Target
CARE’s Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Fund seeks to raise $150 million to fund our relief and recovery efforts. Some examples of how your gift could help families displaced by conflict:
Conclusion
The UN estimates that 17.6 million people within Ukraine will require humanitarian assistance in the coming months. Of this number, 9.8 million are expected to be women and girls. With humanitarian needs worsening every day, CARE and our partners are providing support where the needs are greatest – inside Ukraine and in border countries where refugees seek safety. To date, CARE has raised more than $120 million to support our response to the crisis in Ukraine. With your support, we can continue to deliver lifesaving aid and long-term recovery assistance – both in Ukraine and the many countries experiencing the secondary impacts of the conflict – through your generous support of the Ukraine Second Wave Fund.[1]
[1] To effectively manage the current emergency response and continue to be able to deploy resources for other emergencies, CARE will reserve 20% of donations to the Ukraine response to cover technical support, administration and emergency preparedness expenses, including the rapid deployment of staff to emergencies such as this one. In addition, 20% of donations to this fund will be allocated to our response to the global hunger crisis that has been exacerbated by the situation in Ukraine.
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