Ukraine one year on: three organisations on the ground
Exactly one year ago today, Russia plunged Ukraine into the biggest land war since WWII. The conflict has devastated lives, leaving over 7,000 civilians dead, thousands injured and 13 million displaced from their homes.
The Russian president assumed it would be over in days, but today the war wages on with no end in sight. There has been significant coverage of the efforts of governments and global NGOs in this crisis, but on this important anniversary, we wanted to draw attention to the heroic work of individuals and small organisations who are making a difference on the ground.
We interviewed individuals from three different organisations to hear about what they are doing to support the Ukrainian people, and their reflections on the crisis one year on.
“I never expected to see this level of devastation and brutality from Russia” - Brooks Newmark, a social entrepreneur and founder of Angels for Ukraine who has evacuated thousands of Ukrainians.
Brooks Newmark has spent almost a year in Ukraine and as of January, his organisation Angels for Ukraine has helped evacuate more than 21,000 women and children from war-torn cities. His journey began on the Polish side of the border in early March last year, when he worked with a Latvian friend to transport women and children from areas of conflict. Using his experience in business and government, he has worked with ten local governments to set up transportation hubs in places like Lviv, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zapporizhia, Dnipro and Kharkiv to move vulnerable civilians out of the firing line.
One year on, Brooks spoke of the toll of human suffering he had witnessed, recalling a mass grave in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb where 400 civilians had been killed. “I never expected to see this level of devastation and brutality from Russia, a country that is on the UN National Security Council”. Almost 12 months later, his focus has moved from transporting civilians to transporting trauma patients and amputees to hospitals in Europe, who have been seriously injured by shrapnel and mines. Brooks has also signed a contract with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to evacuate wounded soldiers – something large humanitarian organisations do not have permission to do.
He reflected on the country one year on. “The situation in Ukraine is still desperate. In many liberated areas in East Ukraine, there is still no heating or electricity and people are facing a bitterly cold winter. As well as the transportation of people, we’ve been delivering warm clothes and blankets, and have ramped up humanitarian aid”. On a more positive note, he said, “I am increasingly positive about the Ukrainians beating the Russians. The people of Ukraine are stronger than ever before”. Brooks praised global powers who are firming up their support for Ukraine and the work of big business and NGOs but described the “donor fatigue” that had emerged as the conflict enters its second year.
His final message was “We cannot forget the people of Ukraine. Everyone must do everything they can to keep this issue in the public eye, and put pressure on their elected officials to give Ukrainians the equipment they need to win, not just defend”. Donate to Angels for Ukraine here.
“This is the first time British people have opened their homes in this way” - Anastasiia Spivak and Tanya Naimanova from USPUK, a charity which assists Ukrainians displaced by war.
When the war in Ukraine broke out, the USPUK (Ukrainian Sponsorship Pathway UK) was set up to assist refugees seeking sanctuary in the UK. The charity works closely with the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme, which has enabled thousands of people from across Britain to open their homes to refugees, and provides key support on the ground.
At the heart of USPUK’s work are Ukrainian consultants, all of whom are women that were forced to flee the war themselves. We spoke to Anastasiia and Tanya who have been supporting individuals and families throughout the VISA process and are helping them relocate and settle in with their new communities. “One of our main challenges is the vulnerability of the people we work with. We act as friends and listeners to refugees to help them make this decision - many only have the clothes on their backs.” Tanya said.
Anastasiia shared her experience working with a refugee who was fleeing a heavily-bombed city. “This person didn’t realise that relocating to the UK was an option for them. As traumatic as this journey was, it was a new beginning for them and to see the impact we’ve had is rewarding”. With the reported surge of homeless Ukrainian refugees in the UK, the work the team at USPUK do to identify host and guest needs and find the best matches through the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme is critical. As a result of the close assistance they offer refugees and hosts, the charity has never had a single case where a relationship between host and sponsor has broken down, or someone has been made homeless.
Having fled Ukraine themselves, Tanya and Anastasiia stressed how grateful the Ukrainian people are for initiatives like this, but the scope of their work is constrained if more UK hosts and resettlement partners do not come on board. In their words, “This is not the time to stop. This anniversary is an important day to reflect on our journey and find new solutions to help more Ukrainians”. USPUK is now actively recruiting corporate sponsors to take on the challenge to find 50 hosts in the UK and corporate sponsors who will together be able to guarantee another 5000 homes for Ukrainians this year.
One year on, the message from the team at USPUK to individuals and businesses is that Ukrainians need their support and it’s not too late to get involved.
“One woman was so cold she was sleeping in her bathtub.” Harry Blakiston Houston, Founder of Insulate Ukraine, an organisation which has designed an emergency solution to replace windows shattered by war.
Since the start of the war, millions of windows have been blown out by bombs or bullets. With Ukrainians facing sub-zero winter temperatures, Harry Blakiston Houston, an engineer at the University of Cambridge, put his PHD on pause and set out to find a solution that would keep Ukrainians warm and protected throughout the harsh winters. “I started out volunteering in Medyka, on the Polish border when I realised the lack of engineering solutions in the humanitarian world. One of the problems in liberated areas such as Izyum are lack of windows in houses that have been shattered by bullets and shelling”.
Most people are using signposts and plank wood to patch up their windows, but this leaves them without any insulation. Harry recalled that one of the first people they helped was an elderly woman who was sleeping in her bathtub because she was so cold. To help tackle this problem, Harry and the team of engineers he assembled from Cambridge, have designed triple-glazed cellophane windows, which insulate like a standard double-glazed window. Crucially, these can be built by almost anyone for $15 in 15 minutes, are much easier to transport and if there is further shelling, they will not shatter.
Harry stressed that it was a temporary solution, but it had proved hugely effective. Their focus now is providing materials and working with NGOs and local governments to teach Ukrainians a “new technique to an age-old problem”. Harry spoke about his encounter with a woman called Dasha, whose house was 0 Celsius and she had resorted to patching one window with a feed sack. In one hour, with this new technique, the house was significantly warmer. According to Insulate Ukraine, it costs just $50 to insulate an entire house and $10,000 for an entire village, and the team is currently raising $120,000 to install 6,000 windows across the city of Izyum and the surrounding area. “One year on, we are not out of the woods yet. The reason we are here is because people are really suffering - it was minus 8 degrees yesterday and below freezing in many of the houses we visited. It’s clear this war is going to go on for some time, so we need to prepare for next winter now”.
The team at Audley has made a donation to these three organisations to support the important work they do. If you are a corporation or individual in a position to donate, please do through the following links:
By Lucy Thompson, Senior Associate at Audley