Since March 2022 a group of individuals and organisations based in Peterborough, Stamford, Sheffield and Dronfield have been working with Ukrainian refugees in Gliwice, southern Poland to help Ukrainian communities in Poland and Ukraine.

We have now made 15 trips to Poland and Ukraine, delivering humanitarian aid, ambulances, camping stoves, generators and specialist medical equipment. Our team has just returned from Sumy and Kyiv, delivering much needed support to communities on the front line and specifically to an orphanage near Sumy.

We are now collecting food and medical supplies, toys, sanitary products and batteries for our next trip out in June. We are also supporting a Summer Camp for 23 war widows and their families, offering much needed grief counselling and respite. Five of the team will be volunteering at the camp.

In total over the last 24 months, the team has raised over £260K and

1. Purchased and had delivered 37 generators for use by churches, schools, orphanages, charities and cafes across Ukraine

2. Delivered over 50 tonnes of donated food supplies, including rice, pasta, tinned food to villages close to the Russian border in Sumy oblast and across southern Ukraine. Videos that can be found on the group’s You Tube site https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy0QCmIALTCX5T4c_VbgzwGtIZBER1pao show the supplies being delivered to these communities.

3. Delivered 2 tonnes of general medical supplies, such as bandages, sutures, surgical gowns and gloves directly to the Kyiv Heart Institute

4. Purchased specialist medical equipment for the Kyiv Heart Institute, particularly 25 heart valves and over 600 sutures for use in heart surgery

5. Purchased flak jackets and helmets to protect humanitarian aid workers who are helping get our donations to front line communities

6. Provided financial support for a humanitarian aid team for four months (April – August 2023), providing funds to purchase fuel and additional supplies, such as bread, to be delivered to communities around Bakhmut and Lyman and fridges and microwaves to the flood devastated villages around Kherson

7. Supported a charity for the deaf in Odesa, buying head torches, power packs and hi-vis ribbons to help them through the winter

8. Delivered c 1000 Christmas and Easter gift boxes for Ukrainian refugee children in Poland and in Rivne, Kostopil, Odesa, Kyrvy Rik, Chernivtsi, Kyiv and Karkhiv and Sumy Oblasts.

richard@athene-communications.co.uk

Helping Our Ukrainian Friends