A year of struggle: how the «Foundation of Goodness & Love» works on the volunteer front. VIDEO
March 1, 2023.
It has been exactly one year since Ukrainians woke up to the explosions of Russian rockets. A year in which every Ukrainian embarked on the path of struggle: each on his own front. One of them is voluntary.
«Foundation of Goodness & Love» works together with partners and with the support of the Government of the country to ensure that as many Ukrainians as possible remain alive and preserve the lives of their loved ones. Currently, the Fund has six priority areas of work: humanitarian and medical aid, evacuation of the population from “hot spots”, support of medical facilities, assistance to the military, reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure.
For almost 15 years, the Fund’s activities were mainly regional. With the beginning of a full-scale invasion, the geography of work spread to the whole of Ukraine.
Kyiv region and the capital
The main representative office of the «Foundation of Goodness & Love» is located in Kyiv.
In February 2022, the “Kindness and Love Foundation” was one of the first to distribute water and food in the most affected areas of the city, and organized targeted deliveries to people with disabilities and pensioners.
He was one of the first to arrive in the liberated Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin and the surrounding areas. People were given bread, drinking water and foodstuffs that they had not seen for weeks.
Those freed from the terror of occupation were examined by paramedics, providing them with medicine and emergency medical care. Half a thousand residents of the Kyiv region were taken to hospitals by ambulances of the Foundation.
The Foundation also held 10 charity street food festivals in de-occupied cities, where volunteers distributed free burgers, drinks and food kits.
In the Kyiv region, the Fund has started rebuilding housing infrastructure. The pilot settlement was the village of Buzova in the Kyiv region.
In cooperation with partners, the first 95 modular houses were installed in three villages.
The fund continues to organize humanitarian actions in the cities and villages of the Kyiv region most affected by the occupation.
Mykolaiv region
Since July, a large charity operation has been held in Mykolaiv, daily food packages weighing more than 12 kilograms are distributed to residents of the city and migrants. Since the beginning of the war, more than 1,000 tons of rubber aid have been distributed in the city, reaching 80,000 people.
Residents of the front-line zone of the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions also received help from the Fund.
When the city was on the verge of a humanitarian disaster due to the lack of water, the Foundation, together with partners, built 17 wells with drinking water.
A mobile multifunctional hospital for the rescue of civilians and military personnel was handed over to the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration. In three months, he managed to take more than 1,000 people out of the war zone and save them.
Kharkiv region
Since the beginning of the war, the Fund has been distributing aid in the areas of Kharkiv region most affected by the occupation. More than 20 tons of rubber aid were distributed in the cities of Izyum, Kupyansk and dozens of de-occupied villages that are still on the front line.
Since the beginning of September, a mobile kitchen has been operating in various districts of Kharkiv and the surrounding area, and volunteers distribute about 200 free hot lunches to everyone every day. The Foundation’s representative office also distributes food kits and clothes to locals.
Donbas
“The Good and Love Foundation” together with its partners made dozens of trips to Donbas, each time bringing people the most necessary things for life: food, water, warm things, medicines, stoves, and hygiene products. The Fund evacuated more than 2,500,000 Ukrainians from the “hot spots” of Donbas: Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Kramatorsk, Bakhmut. In ambulances, paramedics and volunteers managed to take more than 500 seriously ill and disabled people to safer territory.
In addition, at the beginning of the invasion, evacuation was carried out from Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, Chernihiv and Sumy.
Odesa region
There are three representative offices of the «Foundation of Goodness & Love» in the Odesa region: in the cities of Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky, Izmail and Kiliya. There, volunteers provide humanitarian assistance to displaced people from other regions, and also support the families of defenders who, in particular, defended the Snake Island.
Medical program
18 Ukrainian hospitals, in particular in Kyiv, as well as in the Chernihiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Lviv regions, received equipment worth over a million dollars from the Fund. These are ultrasound devices, artificial lung ventilation, ambulances and rare medical drugs, which are currently difficult to obtain in Ukraine.
Together with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the government of the Netherlands and the company “Hospitainer”, the Fund launched a project to provide aid to Ukraine in the amount of 10 million euros.
Ambulances of the «Foundation of Goodness & Love» are used by paramedics to save lives in de-occupied cities and villages.
Help to defenders
In total, more than 200 tons of food and other necessary means were sent to the defenders for the Eastern and Southern borders, and the Foundation handed over a set of demining suits worth more than 400,000 dollars to the Armed Forces.
The Foundation also provided some units with off-road vehicles, drones, construction materials and equipment for setting up positions, generators, water tanks, mosquito nets, and means of protection against snakes and insects.
More than 300 employees of the State Emergency Service were trained in providing pre-medical assistance with the support of the Good and Love Foundation. For the rescuers of Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Vinnytsia regions, experts conducted courses in extreme medicine.
Protection of childhood and motherhood
Large families of migrants, single parents and mothers received help from the Fund in Kyiv region, Odesa region and Kharkiv. The children were provided with warm winter clothes and shoes, baby food, diapers and hygiene products.
The Foundation continues to provide humanitarian aid to orphanages and boarding schools in Kyiv and Odesa regions.
Despite the war, the Foundation continued to hold annual Christmas events for children in Bessarabia, delivering gifts to large and low-income families, family-type homes and boarding schools.
In total, during the year of the war, more than 500,000 people in various regions of Ukraine received humanitarian aid from the «Foundation of Goodness & Love».