SHRG Ukraine Assistance Project - Litay
Kyiv, Kyiv City, Ukraine
Aim
My primary focus is to open up international funding streams 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 through 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: Litay
The Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) "Litay" was created by internally displaced women in Ukraine to help, support, and motivate displaced mothers raising children with disabilities and internally displaced women with children.
"Litay" was formed back in 2014. The story began when internally displaced women were forced to leave their homes due to Russian aggression in the east of Ukraine.
They needed places to live, shoes, clothing for themselves and their children, food, and basic household items. They met other women in queues, helped each other, and provided support.
Over time, the mothers of children with disabilities and internally displaced women organised themselves into an initiative group called the "Club of Special Women". In July 2022, they officially registered as the public organisation "Litay". They presently support more than 210 families, but this number is growing due to Russia's ongoing military aggression against Ukraine, forcing people to leave their homes. "Litay" is focused on ensuring that mothers have access to various forms of assistance: psycho-emotional, educational, legal, and humanitarian.
"Litay" is creating a community that helps women raising children with disabilities and internally displaced women with children find support, strength and opportunities to spread their wings and build their futures confidently.
Litay’s mission is to unite women into a community where they are heard, accepted, supported, and inspired.
In November 2024, Litay was included in the Register of Social Service Providers in Ukraine. Its services are listed as:
- Information provision.
- Consultation.
- Social support for families/individuals in difficult life circumstances.
- Social integration and reintegration.
- In-kind assistance.
Litay’s Values
- Trust: Litay builds relationships based on mutual respect and transparency, creating a safe space where every woman can openly speak about her problems and needs.
- Development: Litay supports the personal and professional growth of women by providing them with opportunities to learn, gain new skills, and expand their horizons.
- Inspiration: Litay strives to inspire women to believe in themselves and their abilities, helping them overcome life’s challenges and achieve success.
- Support: Litay provides comprehensive assistance to women so that they feel or know that they are not left alone with their difficulties and can always count on Litay’s support.
Activities
Litay provides the following activities supporting women and children, using the following areas of work.
For Women:
- Women’s Support and Development Club - ‘Mom Has Wings’.
- Psycho-emotional support.
- Art therapy, creative meetings.
- Women's mutual support chat.
- Inclusive family events.
- Human Rights Advocacy - 'Mom Has Rights’ – protecting the rights of internally displaced families and children with disabilities:
(i) ‘Dialogue Without Barriers’ - Meetings with Government authorities and human rights organisations, where women from the NGO ‘Litay’ raise important issues that concern them.
(ii) Assistance in obtaining legal advice.
(iii) Support and assistance in obtaining wider assistance.
For Children:
- "SPILNOKOLO" Children and Teenagers Club.
- Psychosocial support for children with disabilities and internally displaced persons:
(i) Art therapy.
(ii) Educational classes.
(iii) Creative master classes.
Figures as of the end of 2024:
Thanks to the NGO Litay:
- 700 Ukrainian families have received humanitarian aid.
- 1255 humanitarian aid packages have been provided since 2022.
- 155 internally displaced women have received comprehensive support.
- 263 internally displaced children have received comprehensive support.
- 630 women have engaged in Litay’s events.
Humanitarian aid for families in 2024:
(1) Distribution of food packages with the support of the “Samaritan Union of Ukraine Kyiv Association” – more than 200 food packages were distributed in total.
(2) Christmas gifts for children supported by the “Samaritan Union of Ukraine Kyiv Association” – 280 gifts distributed.
(3) “Relief, Recovery for Children. Part II, Ukraine” implemented by the NGO “Women's Consortium of Ukraine” in cooperation with ERIKS Development Partner and RadioAid (Sweden) – cash assistance for 30 families, food and hygiene kits for 35 families.
(4) Distribution of food and hygiene kits to 50 families raising children under 3 years old, supported by the “Power of Women 2024” program.
(5) Assistance to families within the initiative of Yulia Mattu and volunteers from Italy, “CIBO-BOX” – 40 families received food packages, clothing, and hygiene items.
(6) Toys and games for families from donor Mariia Korkach – provided to 10 families.
(7) Warm clothes and hand-knitted toys from the “Knitted Care” initiative were received by approximately 120 children.
(8) Individual assistance to 11 families raising children with disabilities, with the support of partners from the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta.
N.B. Data is available for the first half of 2025 upon request.
Family Story of Marharyta
Marharyta Anatoliivna is raising two children - her son Denys (born on 23 January 2016) and her daughter Yevheniia (born on 22 April 2020), who has a Group I Disability — Cerebral Palsy (CP).
The family moved to Kyiv from Nova Vodolaha, Kharkiv region, in 2022 because of the war. They are officially registered as internally displaced persons (IDPs) and currently rent an apartment in the Bortnychi district of Kyiv.
Marharyta is not employed, as she provides full-time care to her daughter, who requires ongoing medical attention and regular rehabilitation courses.
At the moment, Yevheniia needs a rehabilitation course, as well as hygiene products, medicines, and special nutrition. The total amount needed for these expenses is 30,000 UAH (£543.33).
Unfortunately, the family cannot cover these costs on their own due to the lack of stable income and difficult living circumstances.
Marharyta has provided medical confirmation and has given permission to the NGO “Litay” to use her family’s story and photograph for fundraising purposes to support her daughter.
Ms Olena’s Family Story
Ms Olena Pavlivna is raising twin daughters - Daria and Mariia, born in 2022. The family moved to Kyiv from the Kharkiv region (Chuhuiv district) in 2022, after the start of the full-scale war. They currently live in a rented apartment.
Olena is raising the children on her own and is currently on maternity leave. The father does not participate in their upbringing. One of the daughters, Daria, has a Type I Disability - Cerebral Palsy, Spastic Diplegia. At nearly three years old, she is unable to sit or walk independently and has significant motor development delays.
Family Needs
Daria requires continuous complex rehabilitation, including physical therapy, massage, speech and corrective therapy, swimming, and occupational therapy. She also needs special equipment to support motor development - walking stairs for training, an automatic rehabilitation treadmill, a standing frame, and orthoses. The total cost of necessary treatment and equipment is about 300,000 UAH (£5433.31).
The family needs support so that Daria can continue her rehabilitation and have a chance at independence.
Litay’s Support and Development Club for Mothers - “MOM HAS WINGS”
Since 2023, Litay’s support and development club for moms, "Mom Has Wings", has been successfully operating for women raising children with disabilities and internally displaced women in Kyiv. They create a women's circle for communication, experience exchange, and mutual support amongst club members. As well as providing psychological support. The importance of this for women who are in extremely difficult conditions owing to Russia’s full-scale invasion cannot be overstated.
The club offers various activities for moms each week: painting workshops, nature therapy, neurographics sessions, art therapy, and much, much more… These offline and online meetings with interesting people sharing their knowledge and experiences help the participants to focus on the positive, find inspiration, and remember their wings - wings of faith and hope.
Litay provides opportunities for women to try their hand at being trainers and supports them in starting their own businesses (please see below for more information). Litay already has great examples of their beneficiaries finding their path and inspiring others by their example.
Within the framework of the club:
- 40 online events, 30 offline events, and 60 individual consultations with helping professionals were held. 25 engaged specialists, 10 of whom are Litay’s beneficiaries, participated as experts.
- 12 events were conducted by master's students as part of their preparation for defending their master's theses.
- 1 beneficiary – a mother raising a child with a disability - with the support of Litay and the Mom Has Wings club, founded her personal brand and is successfully developing it.
N.B. Data is available for the first half of 2025 upon request.
Litay’s Island of Safety
According to Litay’s research and observations, women with small children and pregnant women do not take shelter in bomb shelters during air strikes. The reason is quite simple - the shelters lack basic conditions for staying several hours; there is no place to lie down, and no way to soothe children experiencing stress in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar environment. As a result, these individuals choose to stay in their apartments.
This is why Litay’s project was created. Litay decided to change the perception of these women and make them feel comfortable in bomb shelters. In collaboration with the administration of Kyiv School #216, Litay organised the first special room in a bomb shelter for mothers with children under 3 years old and for pregnant women.
This was only made possible by donors such as yourself and domestic volunteers who helped to transform this room into a cosy and safe space (carried out repairs, assembled furniture, packed diapers and other essentials, and brought toys). Spaces like this are extremely rare in Ukraine, but are essential during the relentless Russian air strikes that have only increased in frequency and intensity in 2025.
Women and Their Own Business
This project is aimed at supporting Ukrainian women who want to start their own business. It offers educational and psychological support, individual coaching, assistance in a Telegram chat, and facilitates access to mini-grants from partner organisations. As a direct result of this project, 7 women have already received grants and started their own businesses.
Inclusive Family Events
These events or projects, in their own right, are aimed at supporting internally placed women and their children, overcoming discrimination, fostering tolerance in society, and promoting the creation of an inclusive community. Each event brings together approximately one hundred to two hundred people.
Why do they work?
As of 2025, 3.4 million people in Ukraine live with a disability. As of 01 January 2022, women with disabilities constituted 47% of all persons with disabilities. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to a significant increase in the number of people with disabilities and has intensified the stigma and discrimination. Specifically, in the context of the humanitarian response, women with disabilities who have become internally displaced persons (IDPs), women with sensory impairments (vision or hearing), and women who are caregivers of children with disabilities are groups that experience multiple forms of discrimination.
Experiencing multiple forms of discrimination manifests in increased barriers to access to vital services, employment, education, information, and security, requiring an immediate and systemic response from state and international organisations. Developing a practical legal and policy framework supported by the developed community-based services is crucial for eliminating instances when women with disabilities experience multiple forms of discrimination, and minimising the consequences of the war.
Which groups of women and girls with disabilities face the greatest risks of multiple and intersectional discrimination?
The practice of organisations of persons with disabilities, such as Litay, shows that women and girls with disabilities in Ukraine face unique and multilayered challenges. Since Ukraine lacks official statistical data and legal precedents, this analysis is based on real-life stories that demonstrate systemic gaps and the increased vulnerability of women with disabilities.
The analysis of real-life case studies illustrates that the following groups have the highest risks of multiple discrimination: internally displaced women and girls with disabilities, women with disabilities who are raising children with disabilities, young girls with sensory impairments, and women and girls with disabilities from ethnic minorities.
Case Study One: A family of IDPs from the Luhansk region since 2014, including a mother with a Group III disability and a daughter with a mental disability, an adult son, and a father. The daughter is systematically denied access to services. For example, a public pool administration refused to admit the child, citing her existing diagnosis as the reason. Furthermore, the daughter was transferred to individual schooling due to prejudice from teachers, peers, a lack of inclusive approaches in the educational process, and the child's eventual refusal to cooperate. Only the father is employed in the family; the mother does not work because she provides constant care for her daughter.
Factors of multiple discrimination: disability, IDP status (from the Luhansk region), need for constant care for a child with a disability, and economic vulnerability.
Case Study Two: A girl, 18 years old, with a visual impairment. Returned to Ukraine during the full-scale war. She is a university student majoring in IT, where she systematically faces the denial of reasonable accommodation of learning materials. She experiences prejudice from students and lecturers.
Factors of multiple discrimination: sensory disability and age.
In the face of systemic gaps and wartime, organisations such as Litay play a critical role, compensating for the lack of state services. They implement support programs for women, girls and individuals with disabilities. For example, by providing psychological support, humanitarian aid, and educational activities.
Litay's practices demonstrate real success, but their development is constrained by limited funding, and this, I am afraid, is where you come in.
Costs
In Ukraine, there is no state funding for community-based services. Therefore, Litay is greatly in need of your support. Your contribution helps to support both an internally displaced mother and her child simultaneously:
- Two hours of dedicated support for a mother and her child: a specialist works individually with the child, while the mother receives a psychological consultation - £60
Funding an inclusive group session:
- Art therapy for 12 women for 3 hours – £80
- Two hours of group work with a psychologist, including sign language interpretation for women with hearing impairments – £108
N.B. Your contribution provides direct access to support for those who would otherwise be unable to obtain it.
Website Links
www.instagram.com/go.litay.ua/
www.linkedin.com/company/ngo-litay/
https://youtube.com/@golitay?si=HI9nrbx8tfk8ZE7y
Press Publications & Media
These materials illustrate the work of Litay in supporting women raising children with disabilities and internally displaced persons, as well as promoting an inclusive environment in Ukraine.
This project closed unsuccessfully on 29th January 2026