The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (AFUO) is proud to report its ambitious plan to build temporary accommodation shelters for internally displaced Ukrainian people, with funds raised by the Ukraine Crisis Appeal (UCA) and Rotary Australia Community World Service, has led to the first 5 shelters being built in record time, providing safe and welcoming accommodation for over 2,500 homeless victims of the Russian invasion.
At a cost of approximately $680,000 the shelters have been built by Rotary Kyiv in central and western Ukraine (in towns such as Irpin, Bucha-Hostomel, Rakhiv, Zolochiv and Cherkasy) and provide warm beds, cooking and cleaning facilities, and access to food and water.
“The UCA wanted to direct the funds we’ve raised to concrete, humanitarian projects. Together with Rotary Kyiv, this project repurposes schools, kindergartens, sanatoriums and halls into accommodation for 200-500 people,” said Diahanna (Darka) Senko, Chair UCA and Director of Humanitarian Aid Initiatives for the AFUO.
“The need for shelters is urgent and ongoing. Currently, there are 800,000 people sleeping in friends’ homes on the floor, in destroyed buildings and on the streets,” she added.
In a report provided by Rotary Kyiv, internally displaced Ukrainians (IDP) have spoken of their relief and gratefulness for the warm welcome and security they have received at the shelters.
“It is so beautiful here. I feel safe, surrounded by normal, friendly people, who treat us kindly and with respect,” said one of the IDP’s, who had fled Russian occupying forces in Luhansk in 2014, and then been forced to flee Kyiv a second time in early March 2022.
Lyudmila and Anastasia, a mother and teenage daughter who fled Irpin describe the devastation in their home town. “Everything was broken. Died out. There was glass falling everywhere. We were scared to be there at night. While we are here, thank God we have been protected,” said Lyudmila.
Another IDP, Vitalina, starts crying as she describes her dream is that her “son returns alive, our boys do not die, that our parents do not see the suffering that is occurring, that the war ends.’
A husband describes how he had to flee Mylolayiv, the scene of savage fighting and eventual occupation by Russian forces, with his disabled wife, due to fears about her coping without medical supplies. He says ‘[life in the shelter] is paradise’.
“Generous donations of over $6.5 million from ordinary Australians, the Ukrainian Australian community, corporate Australia and the Queensland, Western Australia and South Australian state governments to the Ukraine Crisis Appeal have made this happen,” said Mr Stefan Romaniw OAM, AFUO Co-Chair.
“But we can’t sink into ‘Ukraine fatigue’ and think there’s nothing more we can do. Millions of Ukrainians are internally displaced,” he added.
