Decent housing for all

The Shelter programme restores not only a roof over the head, but also dignity to people who had to leave their homes because of the war in Ukraine.

There are currently around 5 million internally displaced people in Ukraine who have lost their homes because of the war. In the Transcarpathian region, there are around 400 000 of them since the beginning of the war. People in Peril is helping them through the Shelter Programme. Loosely we could translate this expression as shelter, shelter, dwelling.

The main objective of the programme is to provide IDPs with shelter with access to education, services and livelihoods and to help them rebuild on their own feet. We try to make sure that they have at least some privacy, access to sanitation, to a kitchen, and also social and child-friendly spaces.

Collective centres

Among the most vulnerable IDPs are those living in so-called collective centres. Many of them are not well equipped for long-term housing. Most also house vulnerable groups, i.e. the elderly, people with disabilities and mothers with children.

Many collective centres lack wheelchair-accessible showers and more than a third of them have a general lack of sanitary facilities. More than half do not have separate sanitary facilities for men and women.

Seventy per cent of them need some form of repair – painting, plumbing repairs, replacement of doors and windows, renovation of insulation or heating systems. Most would also need new kitchen and dining equipment, washers and dryers, and towels.

The regional state administration in Transcarpathia has provided us with a list of buildings that need to be repaired or furnished. We have also identified some of the buildings by mapping the needs in the regions through our field coordinators. We furnish the buildings according to our internal standards.

It has been difficult to monitor the conditions in which the resettled families live. Many people have nowhere to return to and live in collective centres in western Ukraine for long periods of time. If we want to help them to live with dignity and start afresh somewhere else, it is essential that we improve the conditions for living in these centres.

Andrea Bednáriková, Shelter Programme Manager

Our help in numbers

In 2022, we are involved in the renovation and distribution of furniture in 35 collective centers and 20 modular houses in all 6 regions of Transcarpathia for 2240 beneficiaries. We carried out light repairs in 37 interiors, which are used either as water rooms for children or also as bomb shelters.

So far this year we have helped to create accommodation for 234 people in 8 collective centres and 12 modular houses. By the end of the year, we will have arranged 9 more collective centres, four of which are in rehabilitation centres for children. They will thus also be able to accommodate families with children with disabilities.

Our help in stories

Velykyi Bychkiv

The building of the former lyceum was renovated by our partner organisation People in Need and we equipped it with kitchen appliances, crockery and bed linen. It is intended primarily for families with children who had to leave their original homes located in the war zone.

The women and children who got new housing here had previously lived in shared rooms with complete strangers. They cannot afford privacy. They like to spend time with their children in the common kitchen, where they can prepare fresh food at any time, or just share their daily joys and worries. There is also a family of seven who finally have some privacy in two rooms of their own.

It’s not a real home, but compared to where we were before, the conditions are much better.

Ukrainian mothers from the shelter in Velyko Bychkiv

Mukachevo

Nadiia is a young sympathetic mother of four-year-old Timur. She comes from the Ukrainian town of Kriviy Rih. After the Russian invasion, her husband was immediately conscripted into the army, so she and her son boarded an evacuation train and arrived in Mukachevo. For almost 1.5 years they lived in a local dormitory, but in July Nadiia was one of the first to get the keys to an apartment unit in a modular house that we also helped furnish as part of the Shelter programme.

The young woman is very happy here and particularly likes the freedom and privacy she did not have in her previous accommodation, as she shared it with other women. Her son Timur is delighted with the bunk bed and spends much more time in the fresh air. She is very worried about her family in Ukraine and is waiting for it all to be over so they can be together.

She tries to use the time waiting for the war to end actively so that she doesn’t give in to negative thoughts and mentally fall down. She cleans her new home, participates in various activities, attends events and devotes herself to her son, who has to live away from home, without his father, for almost half of his life.

Serednie

The siblings Ilona and Roman and their father, as well as other families from the Luhansk, Donetsk and Mykolaiv regions, moved into modular houses this summer, where they finally have privacy and do not have to “crowd” four other people in one room, as before. They finally have their own kitchen and bathroom. As part of the Shelter program, we furnished the houses with beds, nightstands, closets, mattresses, linens, kitchen utensils, and accessories.

In addition to the new housing, the local residents also have the opportunity to be employed in a small sewing workshop that is located near the houses. Štefan Hric developed the idea of setting it up there and giving local people a chance to work.

Having a roof over your head is great, but having a job is just as important. It gives a person hope and self-worth.

Štefan Hric, author of the concept Odpadnesh

Today, thanks to the initiative and funding of several Slovak entrepreneurs and organisations, the workshop is in operation and local people sew bags and other products from advertising banners. These are bought from them by Odpadnesh and sold on in Slovakia. In this way it can support them continuously.

Dubové

⁠ Aliona Fedorova is the mother of 8-year-old Yelisaveta and 4-year-old Anna. She and her husband are from Kharkiv region and fled their hometown to Transcarpathia in March 2022. After the liberation of Kharkiv territory, they decided to return back home. Unfortunately, they did not stay there for long. Another continuous shelling of the city forced them to return to Transcarpathia.

First, one rocket landed in a nearby field. Then another one fell into a village near our town. Finally, an Iskander missile hit the town itself. The explosion was overwhelming, powerful and very loud. Then I said to myself, what are we to wait for?

Aliona

The family currently lives in a university dormitory building in Dubovo, which we helped to furnish as part of the Shelter programme. It took them a while to get used to it. The girls in particular were initially very scared during the air raids, which reminded them of the bombings in their hometown. Aliona’s mother enjoys the proximity to the school and kindergarten as well as the overall conditions and orderliness of their new home.

Kolochava

We also helped with the reconstruction and furnishing of an air-raid shelter in a local school in Kolochava, Ukraine. Nearly 500 children study there and another hundred attend the kindergarten. Nothing should stand in the way of children acquiring knowledge and education. Not even war and air raids.

We installed air conditioning, heating, a dehumidifier, modified the sleeping and sitting areas, renovated the toilets, and painted the walls. Children can learn there, but also engage in various activities and games. And since the school building is located in the very centre of the village, the residents can also take shelter in the shelter in case of an emergency.

Yasinia

Yasinia is a picturesque mountain village in the Rakhiv district. There are several buildings on the premises of the local Social Services Centre, and one of them, after recent renovation, serves as a shelter for IDPs. Most of them are elderly and do not have to pay for housing and food there. This is a huge help to them.

Olena and Vasyl originally lived in the Donetsk region. After the outbreak of the war and the subsequent evacuation, they were constantly moving from one place to another. They had to pay for housing everywhere, and as their savings were gradually depleted, they looked for free accommodation. Since May, Yasinia has been their new home.

When they told me on the phone that my husband and I would be staying here and for free, it was a huge gift for us after all the transfers and we were in a state of absolute euphoria.

Olena

In another of the rooms lives Mrs. Zinaida with her daughter and granddaughter, also originally from the Donetsk region. Their living conditions are said to be much better than anywhere they have lived before. They don’t have to walk around in the same room with strange women, men and children, and the little girl attends the local school and extracurricular activities.

Repairs to the shelter building were provided by our Czech partner People in Need. We procured furniture, bedding, household appliances and home accessories.

A safe place for everyone

We will continue to assist in the renovation and furnishing of collective centres, modular houses and dwellings to ensure that the residents there are as comfortable, safe and comfortable as possible.