Returning childhood to a Zaporizhzhia community shelter

Returning childhood to a Zaporizhzhia community shelter

With 22% of the population being internally displaced and over 5000 of them living in community shelters, the city of Zaporizhzhia is in dire need of accommodation. Those that had to leave everything behind are not picky, but the need for improvements is felt in most of the temporary accommodations housing internally displaced people with…

Speedy Stepania: The Superhero of the Carpathians

Speedy Stepania: The Superhero of the Carpathians

Life in the picturesque villages nestled at the foothills of the Carpathians in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast can be challenging, especially for the elderly. But thanks to the incredible dedication of social workers like Stepania, things are getting a whole lot brighter. For over 20 years, Stepania has been the go-to person for residents in three neighboring…

Fostering resilience in a community shelter for displaced people

Fostering resilience in a community shelter for displaced people

As the war goes on in its third year, Ukrainian civil society organisations do everything they can to support the people suffering from it. Believing in the power of community, Hungarian Interchurch Aid – in cooperation with Ukraine Response Consortium partners World Vision and ACTED and with financial backing from USAID, have introduced community-based grants…

Resilience amid ruins: restarting life in war-torn Kherson

Resilience amid ruins: restarting life in war-torn Kherson

Hailing from the village of Kizomys in Kherson Oblast, the Zelinsky family led an almost idyllic life at the Dnipro estuary. Before the war, they dreamed about a big family trip, but this became reality for all the wrong reasons. Fleeing the occupation, the Zelinskys have lived in several shelters all over Western Ukraine before…

From Kherson to Kherson through Estonia: Yulia’s story

From Kherson to Kherson through Estonia: Yulia’s story

Yulia’s past two and half years have been particularly difficult, even for Ukrainian standards. She endured occupation, then their house in Oleshky was flooded, and they lost almost all of their belongings. Finally, she was able to flee with her family through 3 countries before returning to Kherson oblast, only a couple of kilometres from…

New refrigerators to feed the hungry

New refrigerators to feed the hungry

Food, home, chance! – the Emmaus-Oselya Community’s goals echo Hungarian Interchurch Aid’s motto. Standing firmly against social indifference, the community’s social centre with its complex portfolio of assistance works tirelessly to guide the homeless people in their care back into society. One of the most important helping activities has now become a bit easier to…

Not forgotten: indispensable help for frontline residents

Not forgotten: indispensable help for frontline residents

Residents of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts were among the first to witness the horrors of war: destruction, deprivation, even partial or full occupation. Tens of thousands have fled their homes, but many of them have stay behind under daily shelling and in constant fear for their lives and livelihoods. Nevertheless, they are not forgotten….

Cash support eases pain for elderly displaced

Cash support eases pain for elderly displaced

Kamianske – a regional town in central Ukraine – has become a refuge for internally displaced people from Eastern Ukraine. Often leaving behind everything, displaced people are forced to rebuild their lives from scratch. Fleeing occupied Horlivka, 72-year-old Halyna and her two grandchildren, Oleksiy and Misha continue to struggle to make ends meet. Rent, growing…

Once displaced, but at peace in a newfound home

Once displaced, but at peace in a newfound home

Holding 8-month-old Mykyta in her arms in the courtyard of a residential building, Yulia’s vision for the future is considerably better now than a couple months before. Displaced to Kamianske, Dnipropetrovs’k Oblast from her native Volnovakha, she applied for cash assistance provided by the Ukraine Response Consortium-partner Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA). Her lack of savings…