«Humanitarian aid mainly comes to Kherson region through scattered volunteer initiatives from all over Ukraine and the world, often without exploring the residents’ needs and requests. And the idea behind our project – «Synergy of Volunteers of the Kherson Region» – is to unite different volunteer teams in the city,» says Volodymyr Kosiuk, chairman of the public organization Journalists Association «Alternative».
The project started in March and runs with the support of the EU-funded program «Civic Society for Democratization» implemented by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
Kherson needs humanitarian aid very much. The city is shelled daily from the left bank of the Dnipro River. The explosion of just one mine near a multi-story building shatters several dozens of windows. The city has dozens of shellings every day. The apartments are cold, and people urgently need warm blankets and comforters, especially families with small children, large families, and older people.
«The Children’s Voices Charitable Foundation from Kyiv responded to our request,» says Iryna Miezientseva, the main coordinator of the volunteer team of Kherson journalists, about helping such people. «They had 160 winter blankets in their warehouse in Ternopil, ready to give us. Delivery to Kherson was an issue. We shared this information with the public and raised funds to pay for the Nova Poshta services in two days. Ordinary people and colleagues from NGOs joined this initiative.»
Most requests for warm blankets come from families with children living in the suburbs. That’s why many blankets went to Antonivka and Komyshany immediately after delivery. The kids were so happy to get them.
The daily work of volunteer journalists is uneasy and dangerous. The grant funds of the project «Synergy of Volunteers of the Kherson Region» partly cover salaries and taxes for the staff of the public organization Journalists Association «Alternative». Notably, on March 13, it was exactly one year when the organization, which brings together professionals from various media in the region, started volunteering. For 255 days, volunteers worked under the occupation, delivering food to villages on the front line.
With the liberation of Kherson and the right-bank part of the region, the volunteers had even more work to do.
«The work of the project coordinators and managers means hours of daily phone calls and correspondence with people begging for help,» says Iryna Miezientseva. «Some people have lost all their belongings in the rubble, while others do not have enough money to buy food to feed their families. All this needs to be listened to, documented, and included in the work schedule.»
Of 350,000 people living in Kherson before the war, approximately 50-60 thousand remained. These are mostly large and low-income families and older people who cannot move to another region due to health or financial problems.
«In five months of work, we are going to deliver about 60 tons of food to the de-occupied villages of Kherson region and 40 tons to the regional center and suburbs,» Volodymyr Kosiuk shares his plans. «We plan to provide food to about 30,000 people.»
