Support Ukrainian Refugees in Romania

Please continue supporting us via this campaign:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/urgent-medical-supplies-for-ukrainian-hospitals

Next humanitarian aid collection in London (medical supplies, non-perishable food):

St John’s Notting Hill, Lansdowne Crescent, London, W11 2NN 

21st-25th March, 12:00 – 16:00. 

https://fb.me/e/2ime3n22h

We are Kateryna, Petru, Adam and Lesia - a team of volunteers normally based in London, UK and currently located in Romania, Suceava.

Our mission here in north Romania is two-fold. We are providing support to Ukrainian women, children and vulnerable people who have escaped across the border to the town of Suceava. We are also sending vital resources to hospitals in urgent need inside Ukraine. We are delivering batches of specific supplies required by medics to help save lives in some of the worse affected areas.

While Ukrainian fighters are heroically holding Russian forces back, we are working hard alongside other volunteers to ensure Ukrainian hospitals are able to continue to operate on wounded soldiers and civilians. Our supply network is formed of trusted charities and volunteers both in Romania and Ukraine. Through their voluntary efforts  we are distributing medicines both to main hospitals and first-aiders on front lines.

We appreciate that many people support large international charities that are actively fundraising in response to the shocking news coming out of Ukraine. Unfortunately, many such efforts are not yet effective inside Ukraine, with the exception of the Red Cross. Currently, more streamlined volunteers like ourselves are able to deliver supplies within days. The speed of our response is critical as the fighting continues and Ukrainian medical resources become depleted. 

We are also organising collections of humanitarian-aid in London and currently two lorries full of food and other supplies are on their way to the Romanian border where it is expected to cross into Ukraine on the 10th March.

"Support Ukrainian Refugees in Romania" Facebook group has been created by ourselves as well. It is used by people that offer and request help and we also post our updates there if you would like to take a look. Myself, Kateryna Stepanova, is the admin (Katya Step) and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or can offer any help. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330704040731625

Thank you all for your kind support.

=============================================

Our story:

I am a Ukrainian IT professional living in London with my Romanian partner and music teacher Petru. When the full scale Russian invasion into Ukraine has started, we have booked a one-way ticket to fly to Suceava in northern Romania, to be on the ground where the refugees are arriving to offer support in all the ways we can. Including but not limited to: our joint language skills (Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, English), our educational and child welfare expertise, purchasing any necessities such as food, medicines, and clothing, and most importantly - helping create and run local volunteer groups to help displaced people find short and medium term homes away from camp tents. We are working closely with the Red Cross and local government organisations as well as other local NGOs. Here, we also met Adam and Lesia - another UK-UA couple who is also working hard alongside us to ensure Ukraine has all the necessary medical supplies they need right now.

Romania alone is expecting over half a million Ukrainian refugees, as part of an overall wave of as much as 5M people fleeing the war.  We therefore ask for help financing the effort to help on the ground, as we are doing this on purely volunteering basis and our personal resources are limited. We of course work here for free, and all the money raised goes towards the practical needs and expenses of making this operations as effective as possible, so the needs of the Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war are met.  If any of this money is left unused after this crisis is over, it is going to be passed on to the Romanian Red Cross. 

Thank you for your support.