Three stories of hope and resilience from displaced families ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌







Dear friend,

We are continuing our series of updates from Mercy Corps’ response to the Ukraine war with this first report of 2023. This update features three stories of remarkable hope and resilience from three places where our teams are responding: Kyiv and Dnipro in Ukraine, and Warsaw, Poland.

As we begin a new year, Mercy Corps is committed to staying in the region to support a long-term response and recovery — continuously adapting our response to what is needed moment by moment.

We are now approaching eleven months of war in Ukraine, and winter conditions continue to pose further risks to millions of people already facing violence, displacement, diminished utilities, and lack of basic supplies. Increased attacks could lead to a collapse of the country’s power grid, leaving tens of millions of people facing brutal winter temperatures without heat, light, or water.

Each story below is a window into the ongoing challenges people are facing as we approach a year of war — and the impact we are making for families in the midst of this crisis.

Kyiv: Longing for "the peaceful life"
Antonina and her family fled to Kyiv shortly after the war began. "We have survived it, but it will stay with us for life," she says. "We shall never be able to forget it."
Antonina, 53, is from Kreminna, near the Russian border in Eastern Ukraine. When the bombing began in her city in March, she hid with her family in the cellar of their home and later, their neighbors joined them. Thirty-five people stayed there, including eight children, with no running water or electricity.

"When people came running down after the air raid alert…I found a 1.5 liter of bottled water in my cellar, and we shared that water using tiny plastic glasses," she says.

Eventually, they fled to Kyiv where Mercy Corps and our local partners provided Antonina’s family with food, plus cash assistance for housing and medical care for her father-in-law when he broke his arm.

Dnipro: Life in a crowded hostel
Valentyna’s hometown in Ukraine has seen conflict for years. Her granddaughter’s school was destroyed by violence in 2014 and later rebuilt. In February 2022, it was destroyed again.
Valentyna fled to Dnipro from her hometown in the Donetsk region in March, an area where conflict has been active since the early days of the war. As they were leaving, she recalls there was shelling behind them.

Now in Dnipro, she lives with her husband, daughter, son, and granddaughter in a small hostel room. "We have ten people staying in one room. It is tough," she says.

With cash assistance from Mercy Corps, Valentyna and her family were able to pay for two months of rent plus utilities and medication which she needs for an injury to her knee. They expect that they will be able to cover the next four months of rent with this money, too.

"We want to go home," Valentyna says. "The question is, should we be able to live there? Everything is destroyed and burned down, no hospital or schools, infrastructure is non-existent. So we just live day-to-day without making any long-term plans."

Warsaw: Searching for work in a new city
Yurii lives with his family in Warsaw after fleeing their home due to bombing. At home, he harvested wheat, barley, and sunflower. "It was beautiful," he says of his home.
Yurii Ostapenko, 54, is from the Luhansk region of Ukraine. After his home and village were bombed in September, he and his wife, who lives with a disability, decided it was time to leave for their safety. His two children and three grandchildren had already fled Ukraine for Poland.

He now lives in Warsaw with his family, but they hope to return to their home in Ukraine when it is safe to do so.

In Poland, he has been searching for work, but hasn’t been able to find anything yet. With support from Mercy Corps, Yurii was able to get an apartment within 24 hours of arriving in the city. He called our local partner’s emergency hotline, which provides assistance to recently displaced Ukranians in Poland and connects them with job information, temporary housing, doctors, and other services.

The stories of Antonina, Valentyna, and Yurii are a few of the 100,000+people in Ukraine that our team members and local partners have reached so far, with the support of the Mercy Corps’ global community. But our response does not end there.

The devastation in Ukraine reaches far beyond its borders. Food crises in Africa and the Middle East continue to escalate. Combined with extreme droughts and floods caused by climate change, more and more people are being pushed to the brink of famine and poverty. We can’t lose sight of what is happening in countries across the globe.

We are proud of this work — and today, we ask you to help sustain this impact in places like Ukraine and in 40+ countries worldwide where Mercy Corps is making a difference. As humanitarian needs grow around the world, consider becoming a monthly donor — a Mercy Corps Partner In Possibility — to help sustain our global impact throughout 2023.
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Thank you again for being part of this extraordinary response to an extraordinary moment.

Sincerely,

The Mercy Corps team