Many women in Ukraine are raising children and caring for elders alone while their husbands and sons are in the army. Those in rural areas have limited access to jobs, and there are few educational opportunities for girls. Some humanitarian aid reaches the villages, but it's often in the form of standard food packages, when what women need most is daily items such as medicines, communications devices, kitchenware and gardening tools.

During spring and autumn 2023, I travelled around east, south and central Ukraine doing various kinds of volunteering. In particular, along with my friends from the Freefilmers Ukrainian NGO, I delivered aid and visited communities affected by the war, and wrote up my experiences here. Now in spring 2024 I'm back in Zaporizhzhia and you can read up on what I'm doing, and what your donations are achieving on my substack. In April, along with friends and supporters, we supplied the devastated village of Luch in Mykolaiv region with building tools, gardening equipment, medicines, blood pressure monitors, sewing machines and laptops.

I am self-supporting during my travels, so all proceeds from my fundraising go to Ukrainian communities in need.

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Photo: Mayor of Arkhangelske village Olena Kompanets (left) and inspector of the Centre for Providing of Administrative Services of Vysokopillia district (of Kherson region) Olena Lelak (right), in front of their office building destroyed by Russian troops. Arkhangelske, Kherson Region, Ukraine. 6 November, 2022. By Yulia Serdyukova.