Ukrainian kindheart’s thousands of toys for children fleeing homes
A MAN who has organised the delivery of thousands of toys to children fleeing their homes in Ukraine said the project was helping families to “shine” and “open up”.
Dimko Zhluktenko, who grew up in Rivne, western Ukraine, is helping to distribute toys to children passing through Lviv’s main railway station, which he described as a “refugee hub for literally the whole country”.
Mr Zhluktenko has raised more than $70,000 (£55,000) to provide refugees with humanitarian aid and items such as stuffed toys, plastic cars and sweets for children, describing his idea as something that will make them “feel welcome” in Lviv.
“From what I’ve seen, it makes a difference,” the 23-year-old said.
“Sometimes I feel that people are scared to come here or sceptical. My idea is to have them feel welcome, to break that stupid stereotype they might have in their head and make them feel comfortable and change the perception they had of western Ukraine too.
“And especially with the parents of these kids who are like, ‘Don’t talk to anyone, don’t bother’, but once they see the support that we are giving to them, they just start to shine – they open up.”
At first, Mr Zhluktenko spent a lot of his own money providing humanitarian aid to refugees but eventually he began appealing to his Twitter followers.
He has asked people to make contributions by Paypal.
One friend got in touch about a community of Ukrainians in Luxembourg who had been donated 21 pallets of toys which they were willing to give to Mr Zhluktenko for his project.