The war in Ukraine has been ongoing for three years  

“It is both terrifying and sad that our youngest eight-year-old son can already distinguish the sound of a Shahed suicide drone, from the sound of a rocket.” These are the words of our Ukrainian colleague Yaroslava from the Poltava region, illustrating what Ukrainians have been experiencing in their country over the past years.

People in Peril has been providing aid in Ukraine since the start of the full Russian invasion in 2022. Over the past three years, we have helped approximately 250,000 people and delivered more than 3,900 tons of material aid. Our help has reached residents in 13 regions: Chernihiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Kyiv, Chernivtsi, Cherkasy, Kherson, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, and Poltava. We have fully established offices in Uzhhorod and Kyiv. We keep helping. We cannot and do not want to stop. 

During a visit to the Zakarpattia region, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk also praised the work of People in Peril. 

We are also helping Ukrainians in Slovakia. While we initially focused mainly on humanitarian aid and meeting their basic needs, our support has now expanded significantly. In our safe spaces – Clubhouses – we assist Ukrainians with their integration into our society. We help them find housing, employment, healthcare, schools, and childcare. We organise tutoring, leisure activities, protection for vulnerable groups, and assist them with bureaucratic matters when they reach out. 

What does our three-year-long support in Ukraine entail?   

Since the Russian invasion in 2022, we have helped thousands of internally displaced persons and other affected residents. We have delivered tons of material assistance – from firewood and food to hygiene supplies, school supplies, clothing, heaters, and equipment for collective centres. We have also supported local organisations and initiatives.   

We have organised leisure time activities and educational camps for children, community events, and training sessions for volunteers, psychologists, teachers, and social workers, as well as those managing collective centres. Our mobile teams have provided psychosocial support to those in greatest need, helping them better cope with the situation and become more resilient. We have repaired and equipped shelters, modular houses, and bomb shelters at schools and kindergartens to ensure children can safely continue their education in shelled areas. We have supported entrepreneurial projects to help displaced people from the eastern part of the country secure livelihoods, along with various smaller initiatives to aid war-affected individuals. And there is much more to come… For our colleague Andy Bednáriková, Shelter Program leader, these three years are also about this: 

For me, these years are mainly about the hundreds of fates and stories, conversations with people who had to leave their homes, and the awareness that we won’t be able to help everyone. There are alarms, moving to shelters, following rocket flights on Telegram, the hum of generators during power outages, and planning for hot showers. But (these years) are also about meeting people, farewells, lifelong friendships, and the solidarity and resilience of Ukrainians, which I will never stop admiring.

Let’s look at the numbers 

We have assisted more than 248,711 people, primarily internally displaced individuals, as well as other affected residents. A survey last year showed that the people we helped in 2024 are better able to cope with their current situation. They also reported an improved quality of life thanks to our support. Last year was particularly difficult, as there were frequent attacks on the electrical infrastructure and the city of Kyiv. 

Over the past three years, we have delivered more than 3,900 tons of material aid to Ukraine. This mainly consisted of regular supplies of fresh and non-perishable food, hygiene items, and non-food items, including clothing, school supplies, heaters, and equipment for collective centres or partner organisations. 

We distributed 2,652 tons of firewood to support 600 families and nearly 5,000 food packages to the most vulnerable residents of Zakarpattia region. We also delivered 42 tons of briquettes for heating to elderly and vulnerable families, living in the Sumy region near the Russian border. 1,230 people received vouchers for winter clothing, and 8,300 people directly received winter clothes. 

In providing protection to vulnerable groups, we conducted more than 12,300 interventions and services for approximately 24,000 people and thousands of hours of leisure activities for children. These included community events, legal consultations, activities addressing gender-based violence, psychosocial support, rehabilitation camps for children and their mothers, and training for volunteers, psychologists, social workers, teachers, and staff of collective centres. 

We also ensured equal and inclusive access to quality education for children and employment opportunities for vulnerable and marginalised groups. These included camps for more than 1,000 children, tutoring for approximately 500 students, including those with special educational needs and children affected by the destroyed Kakhovka Dam. We distributed school supplies to nearly 2,000 children, including those with disabilities or special educational needs. 

We repaired and equipped 27 bomb shelters at schools and kindergartens, created 20 child-friendly spaces, and contributed to smaller repairs of bomb shelters at 15 educational institutions. 

You can see more about life in air-raid shelters in video report.

We also repaired and equipped 53 collective centres, improving living conditions for 3,140 people. We provided equipment for 42 modular homes, housing 154 people, and built one prefabricated house for a large foster family. 

Local organisations are important partners for us. We distributed 19 grants to support entrepreneurial projects, enabling us to help together. We also organised business training, workshops, and career counselling for 378 people. 

Here is how our Ukrainian colleagues view these three years of war:  

Dushan, Užhorod

What do I feel during this terrible war? I feel fear. For myself, my family, and my colleagues working in the Chernihiv, Poltava, and Kyiv regions. I am very scared when I wake up at night during an air raid siren. At that moment, it feels like my body is shrinking and burning. I feel sick thinking about what people on the front lines and near the front are enduring. But we’ll survive… Everything will be okay again.

Yaroslava, Poltavský región

Three years ago, we couldn’t have imagined living in such difficult conditions with children. Waking up every morning with relief that the night is over, and our family has made it through. It is both terrifying and sad that our youngest eight-year-old son can now distinguish the sound of a Shahed drone from a rocket. Yes. This is probably the most terrifying part.

If you care about the fate of Ukrainians and would like to support us in continuing to help them, we would be grateful. Thank you. 

You can see the testimonies of our colleagues who work and live in Ukraine here.