The work of Terre des Hommes in Ukraine

Terre des Hommes Italy has been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the ongoing war, from February 2022. As of early 2024, 6 million Ukrainian refugees were abroad, and 3.5 million were internally displaced. The conflict has damaged or destroyed over 1.4 million homes, especially in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia, as well as numerous infrastructures, hospitals, schools, and essential services.

At least 14.6 million people require humanitarian assistance to meet urgent needs, such as medical care, livelihoods, protection, and education.

Our organization’s actions for the victims of the conflict in Ukraine

In the early days of the conflict, we provided medicine, medical supplies, and life-saving equipment, such as incubators, defibrillators, ventilators, and an ambulance to the most pressured Ukrainian healthcare facilities, including pediatric hospitals in Mykolaiv and Kharkiv, the regional hospital of Cherkasy, and Hospital No. 7 in Kyiv.

In Mykolaiv, we set up two tents that offered basic medical services and psychological and psychosocial assistance to a thousand vulnerable people, mostly elderly women. In certain areas of the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions near the front lines, we conducted mine awareness campaigns reaching over 34,000 people, including children.

For Ukrainian refugees in Italy, we offered guidance and psychosocial support in Friuli Venezia Giulia, along with Italian language courses. In Milan, our “Spazio Indifesa” Hub provided food aid, psychological support, Italian courses, and job placement assistance. In Besana Brianza, we provided two apartments to women and children refugees.

In the following months, in Irpin, designated a “hero city” as it was 76% destroyed by the conflict, we renovated four residential buildings with 450 apartments, providing 1,192 people with safe, warm, and dignified homes to return to.

In Zhytomyr and Chernihiv, we renovated eight conflict-damaged schools attended by almost 4,600 students. There, we also organized psychosocial assistance training for children and first psychological aid sessions for over 200 teachers and as many parents. Over 500 schoolchildren were involved in art therapy activities, a psychological support technique that helps express emotions, even for younger children, and process trauma. We also distributed food and essential goods (blankets, hygiene kits, etc.) to struggling families.

Among the most recent projects is an educational and child protection intervention in the regions of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Kherson, some of the most affected by the conflict, where, together with our local partners, we are assisting 5,000 children and 2,000 parents in highly vulnerable situations, exposed to the risk of violence and abuse. The services offered include educational activities in schools and communities, specialized protection services for the most vulnerable people (especially minors), and economic assistance to families.

In the Odessa Oblast, we are carrying out the “Women: Future Without Limits” project implemented with a consortium of three local NGOs specialized in protecting and assisting vulnerable women. We offer psychosocial support and guidance to medical, psychiatric, and legal services for girls and women who have suffered gender-based violence. Safe shelters and support for launching professional activities are also available to them, aiming to promote the beneficiaries’ economic independence, many of whom are refugees from temporarily occupied regions.

Among the main donors for activities in Ukraine are the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Carrefour, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Foundation, the EOS Foundation, the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai, the Polish Medical Mission, the Lombardy Region, Terre des Hommes Netherlands, the Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund, UNICEF, and UN Women.