Local-led charity offers targeted support for displaced Ukrainians
One Irish charity is building on links formed with Slovakia to ensure that aid for those displaced by the war on Ukraine is what the people, and hospitals, need. Self Help Africa, which is chaired by Glenroe’s Carmel Fox, has joined forces with six other Irish organisations to form the Irish Emergency Alliance.
Self Help Africa are supporting three distinct causes at the moment, and the three are targeted support, based on need, and with the approval of the relevant authority.
“There’s really three areas that Self Help Africa is supporting at the minute. The first one is providing medical supplies to one hospital in western Ukraine, in Ivano-Frankivsk. This is with the approval of the department of health, and supplying directly what the hospital needs. We’re bringing it through Slovakia into Ukraine, and supporting refugees that are leaving Ukraine to Slovakia.
The second area we’re targeting is flour for bakeries that are on the Slovakia-Ukraine border, so as to feed people as they are leaving. The third piece of our work is cash payments, which is being coordinated through a local partner. These people have no supplies and need cash to move on.”
Carmel says that it is of utmost importance that everything the charity does is needs-specific, targeted, and always with the approval of the right authority. The group, she says, have a long working relationship with Slovakia built up, and they are now building on that relationship.
HELPING MEET ESSENTIAL NEEDS
Slovakia borders Ukraine to the west, and shares a 60 mile border with the country.
Last week, aid worker with the charity, Ronan Scully, spoke from Vysne Nemeche, a mountain village high up in the Carpathian mountains of Eastern Slovakia. He said that the village, normally home to a population of no more than 250 residents had swelled to tens of thousands as displaced people arrived in the country. Refugee tents, feeding stations and sleeping quarters were erected to meet the very needs of those forced to leave their home. More than 150,000 people have passed through Vysne Nemeche since Russia launched its war on Ukraine in late February, and is seeing over 10,000 refugees, every day.
Mr Scully described what he saw:
“They arrived here in buses, trucks, cars and motorbikes, while many also got here on foot. One woman that I spoke to, Maria, said that she had been walking for days. She had covered close to 100 miles, with her 11 year old daughter Tianna by her side.
“Most of the crowds who are in the village are women – mothers with their children, grandmothers, and many infants. The toddlers are in buggies or in their mothers’ arms. Most people are just carrying backpacks, large handbags or shopping bags.
“I have seen very few men. Women that I’ve talked to say that their husbands, brothers or fathers had dropped them as close as they could to the border and had turned around, to return back home. Several women said that they were afraid that they might never see their partners again, as they were returning to the war.”
Ms Fox said that if local groups were fundraising, they might consider donating the funds raised to the Irish Emergency Alliance. The projects the charity are supporting are ‘totally needs-based and targeted’. She continued to say that with time, the charity’s response might change, but it will continue to be needsbased and targeted.