The NGO of the WW2 veterans from Alchevsk, the grantee of the “Meeting Point- Dialogue” Programme funded by the EVZ Federal German Fund, called to TLU asking for help. The veterans told us that they suffer from so many problems in the city occupied by separatists. The life is extremely difficult for senior people, especially for those who are lonely, frail, with restricted mobility. Many of these are WW2 veterans, former forced workers in the Nazy Germany, former concentration camps prisoners. Within the last few months they couldn’t receive their pension money. They were in critical condition. Many of them starved. Then we had a letter from Gorlivka. The situation in Gorlivka was the same as in Alchevsk.
We informed the EVZ Fund about the appeals for help and asked them about humanitarian aid. Our German colleagues immediately allocated the necessary resources to purchase the food stuff for the “Meeting Point- Dialogue” Programme participants in Alchevsk and Gorlivka.
However we faced even bigger problem – how to deliver the cargo to these cities, because they are located at the territory occupied by terrorists? We had to find some volunteers happy to do this highly dangerous journey. And we were lucky to find these people.
To cut the transportation costs we had to purchase the food stuff in Chuguyiv. This was another “Meeting Point- Dialogue” Programme grantee – the NGO of the WW2 veterans in Chuguyiv.
It took two trips for volunteers to deliver 5 tons of food stuff to Alchevsk.
And what about Gorlivka? We have already bought 3 more tons of food and plenty of medicines for elder people in Gorlivka, but we can’t deliver these to Gorlivka. Butwe don’t give up.
We greatly appreciate the courage and goodwill of the volunteers! We can’t tell their surnames, because they continue their dangerous and very important activity. We don’t want to expose them to unnecessary risk. We want you to know their names: Natalia, Olga, Andriy, Gennadiy.
We also want to thank Valentina Egorova (Chuguyiv WW2 Veteran NGO) and Nadiya Gorbenko (Alchevsk WW2 Veteran NGO) for their assistance.
We express our gratitude to our colleagues from the EVZ Federal German Fund. This is not their single action. Within the last 5 years the EVZ Fund had provided about 1,5 mln Euro as a support to 126 Ukrainian NGOs.
