Always on
This project successfully funded on 18th December 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
SHRG Ukraine Assistance Project - Djerela
Kyiv City, Ukraine
Aim
My primary focus is to open up international funding streams solely for the benefit of Ukrainian families.
Background Re: Mr Carlos Arbuthnott
I am a Human Rights Officer & Project Coordinator at the Sikh Human Rights Group (SHRG), an NGO with Special Consultative Status at the United Nations. I am also the founder and project lead of our Sikh Neurodiversity Network project. I am also a Senior Caseworker (lawyer) at Lawstop Solicitors.
I travelled to Ukraine from 17 August 2025 to 22 August 2025 to meet with various disability rights organisations and advocates as well as to see the domestic projects that they are running in-person.
The primary focus of my visit to Ukraine was and is to open up international funding streams, connections to Ukrainian-speaking medical professionals (educational psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, etc...) based outside of Ukraine for the benefit of Ukrainian families and to otherwise offer my assistance at both a domestic and international level when it comes to the policy and legislative reforms that we believe are much needed.
Please note that I also travelled to Ukraine in August 2024, and this project is a continuance of the discussions that I had then.
Background Re: Djerela
Djerela is a charitable non-profit organisation (NGO) founded by parents of families with individuals with intellectual disabilities in 1994. Today, Djerela directly assists more than 150 people with intellectual disabilities and their families within Kyiv and the Kyiv region (a day centre in Kyiv and a rehabilitation centre in the village of Bohuslav, 120 km from Kyiv and the persistent air raids).
Djerela receives limited and insufficient support from the Ukrainian government and municipal organisations (remember, Ukraine is not a welfare state), and therefore Djerela is heavily reliant upon foreign aid and domestic volunteers.
Djerela was founded in 1993 as a project of the Ukrainian Psychiatry Association, and was officially registered in 1996 with the support of the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry. Djerela unites approximately 150 families from the city of Kyiv who take care of their family member or members with intellectual disabilities.
Djerela’s overarching objective is to unite the efforts of parents and professionals for the development and fulfilment of separate actions, projects and programs that are specifically targeted at the protection of human rights, rehabilitation and social adaptation of people with intellectual disabilities and their families; and the formation of positive public opinion on the equal rights of people with disabilities.
Activities
Djerela presently provides the following activities and support programmes to those with intellectual disabilities in Kyiv:
- 10-day respite care program with a group of 8 other individuals with intellectual disabilities. These programmes are primarily targeted at allowing the mothers and other primary caregivers of family members with intellectual disabilities to have a short pause in their provision of 24/7 care and to allow those with intellectual disabilities to have a break from the relentless air raid sirens, drone and missile attacks on Kyiv. These programmes are usually combined with a course of psychological rehabilitation and/or training courses on independent living skills for youths with intellectual disabilities in Djerela’s rehabilitation centre in the village of Bohuslav, 120 km from Kyiv.
- Online group or individual psychological support therapy sessions with highly qualified and experienced Ukrainian psychologists and peer support group sessions.
- The production and performance of inclusive theatre in Kyiv by those with intellectual disabilities.
- Advocacy for the human rights of those with intellectual disabilities by a group of self-advocates with intellectual disabilities overseen by a professional coordinator.
- Drafting and piloting of the draft state standard of the social service of a personal assistant for persons with intellectual disabilities. As the name suggests, this document is presently working its way through the Ukrainian political and legal system. Once enacted, it will provide legislative standards for those who provide professional care (personal assistance) to those with disabilities in Ukraine.
- Drafting and distributing easy-to-read texts to provide accessible information for all people with intellectual disabilities in Ukraine. From 2022 to 2024, Djerela drafted and released 45 information products in easy-to-read format about the war (10 leaflets, 10 instructions, 25 weekly bulletins).
- Volunteer support for Ukrainian soldiers. For example, the preparation of special “trench candles”. Remember, Ukrainian battalions were initially funded by their own members’ savings and donations from private citizens and organisations.
- Djerela also invites and encourages young university students of Special Pedagogy, Social Work and Special Psychology to visit or volunteer at their rehabilitation centre in the village of Bohuslav, 120 km from Kyiv.
Djerela's Network
Djerela works with, but not limited to, the entities listed below:
- NGO Coalition for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities;
- National Assembly of Ukrainians with Disabilities;
- Dragomanov State University;
- Hrinchenko State University;
- Fight for Right;
- AMIS (A More Inclusive Society – previously known as TEH);
- Inclusion Europe;
- WHO Office to Ukraine;
- Department of Social and Veteran Policy of the City of Kyiv;
- Ministry of Social Policy; and
- Family and Unification (Djerela is included in the Register of Social Service Providers).
Djerela's Costs
- 10-day respite care program (8 people) (summer): 278 231 UAN - £5007.60 GBP
- 10-day respite care program (8 people) (winter): 295 548 UAN - £5319.27 GBP
Website Links
- https://www.youtube.com/@DjerelaCharityAssociation/videos
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made