Support Ukraine: One Year Later
20 April 2023
More than a year later, YMCAs in Ukraine have shown tremendous resiliency. Of the 24 YMCAs in Ukraine, 20 continue to operate, and their programs reached more than 120,000 people in the last year. But there is still more work to be done.
While YMCAs in Ukraine continue to provide traditional programming where possible, activities over the past year reflect the reality of daily life.
While YMCAs in Ukraine continue to provide traditional programming where possible, activities over the past year reflect the reality of daily life.
- YMCA Ukraine developed a mine safety education and prevention board game called “Watch Your Steps”. In addition, local YMCAs sew uniforms and clothes for soldiers, make military nets, and provide evacuation and relocation for people escaping hostile areas and war zones.
- YMCA Boyarka has frequently held workshops to make trench candles for soldiers on the frontline. For example, volunteers made and packed 136 trench candles during a recent February workshop.
- YMCA Lviv provides tactical emergency medicine courses, and despite the challenges, YMCA Ukraine held a family camp in Verkhovyna.
- Emergency support, including food, clothing, housing, transportation, and psychosocial counseling for internally displaced people and Ukrainian refugees in Romania, Moldova, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
- Coordination of regional response efforts and local, national, and regional partnerships.
- Support to re-establish long-term peace and reconciliation, cooperation, and youth programs between Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.
Thank you to all of those who provided donations, thoughts, and prayers.
To see more about Oleksandra and her family, check out this follow-up story from 13 News Now.
