On 24th February 2022, to the shock of people around the world, Ukraine became a warzone. A day later, Street Child launched our first ever humanitarian response in Europe, a Ukraine Crisis Appeal which has already raised over £200,000 from our incredible supporters and corporate partners around the world.

Our aim was simple: to send funds to community organisations at the frontline of providing life-saving support to Ukrainian children, whether they are staying in their hometowns and sheltering, fleeing to other cities or making long and perilous journeys across the western border to relative safety. We have been humbled by the trust supporters have shown in our ability to swiftly identify, vet and get money into the hands of local partners. So what has it been like?

Conversations with our partners, while harrowing and often terrifying, are a source of motivation to us all, as we try to keep as many children as safe and healthy as possible in the circumstances.  Nevertheless, they are facing numerous and evolving challenges in implementing their work. Our call with our newest partner, the Donetsk Youth Debate Centre (DYDC), was organised at a time when their Director felt it was less likely that there would be an airstrike. When we spoke to Posmishka last week, a missile had landed close by at the train station in Zaporizhzhia earlier that morning. Bright Kids’ team had been working from basement shelters in Kyiv but have now also fled to the west, continuing their support to families remotely.

Several of our partners’ staff have themselves had to move, leaving behind their homes and watching their cities being destroyed – yet they persevere through their fear and stress, and have channelled their expertise into setting up support networks in their new cities. For some, it is the second time in eight years that war has forced them to abandon their normal lives. While life in western Ukraine feels significantly safer, the prospect of war is starting to draw closer and they remain concerned that peace is fragile; our colleagues at Ridni are seeking to evacuate as many children as possible out of Ukraine as possible.

Meanwhile, Posmishka, our partner in Zaporizhzhia, is providing aid to people who have fled their homes in Donetsk region and pausing for brief respite. Some have fled Mariupol, where they had been cut off from supplies for days – Posmishka told us of people who have been drinking water from the pipes in their buildings. They have risked travelling through areas with land mines, and have been attacked, despite marking their cars to indicate there are children inside. Some were told there was no point seeking a safe haven in Zaporizhzhia because there would soon be attacks there too, a prediction that has sadly come true. Nevertheless, Posmishka is there to meet them with medicine, food, shelter and a friendly face to talk to. We received an update from them this week which you can watch here.

Half of Posmishka’s team has relocated to the relative peace of Ternopil, in the west. They do not intend to rest now that they are there, they are already formulating plans to set up safe spaces for displaced children to play and meet local children, who will likely be their classmates as they start to integrate into their new communities.

Two of our partners, AirLight and Proliska have also relocated from eastern Ukraine to the west, Truskavets and Uzhgorod respectively. This is reflective of the people they are supporting. AirLight was founded to help people severely wounded by the conflict in the Donbas region with documentation and medical support. As many of these people are re-locating to the west, AirLight is helping those who have now been displaced twice to access what they need to adapt to life in a new place. Proliska are planning to set up mobile child friendly spaces and psychosocial services for newly arrived children of all ages. Our colleagues at Ridni, a children’s charity in Lviv, are also doing everything they can to support the thousands of children and their families arriving each day in the city.

All our partners have talked to us about the very specific challenges faced by children with disabilities, not least because travelling across the country with few supplies is unfeasible. Bright Kids, our partner in Kyiv, is working closely with families sheltering in the city to help them survive the onslaught of attacks. As the families themselves testify, their efforts are truly saving lives.

Just three weeks ago, when our Appeal launched, Street Child had no formal connections in Ukraine. We do, however, have a powerful network of partners, coalitions and our staff’s personal contacts. Through a combination of recommendations of those supporting children and our own desk research, we came up with a list of potential partners: they are locally rooted, small or medium-sized (and not a branch office of an international charity) and are focused on helping marginalised groups within their communities. In the current context, it is also important to us that the funding from our Ukraine Crisis Appeal is not used to fund military operations. Across the portfolio of our partners, we have ensured that we are supporting humanitarian aid across several regions of Ukraine, which are all facing different and nuanced challenges.

Once we identified partners who share our values, we got in touch to speak to them and introduce ourselves and understand more about how they are operating against the backdrop of war – some of these conversations have been truly heartbreaking. One partner told of how it feels like the Ukrainian people are being wiped off the face the earth, that it feels like genocide – but they cannot not do something to help. Partners who were originally based in eastern Ukraine have spoken to us about the unimaginable stress of how the war has escalated since 2014; they had thought themselves accustomed to operating in a conflict environment, but the situation over the last three weeks has been dramatically worse. Despite these circumstances, partners were emphatic that they have felt the international community’s solidarity with Ukraine, not only though donations but also through messages of support that they continue to receive. These conversations help keep hope alive.

Once we have established the feasibility of their providing humanitarian support, and how they would spend a grant from Street Child, we carry out basic due diligence and issue grants as soon as checks are complete.

Street Child has a policy of working with partners as part of our local level action strategy: but nowhere is this more important than in a crisis context. Our local partner organisations are known and trusted by their communities, who feel able to seek help from them. They can mobilise quickly in a crisis, because they know where to procure groceries, clothing, medicines, shelter and a whole host of other necessities to be distributed to families in need. They know where in their towns and cities they can set up child-friendly spaces and where families are sheltering. Where cash flow is proving problematic, they can mobilise their communities to bridge the gap until funding and international humanitarian supplies can reach them. Undoubtedly, access for international aid convoys has been a challenge, particularly in getting to eastern Ukraine. Until this situation improves, it is only thanks to the immense efforts of NGOs like our partners that there are shelters and safe spaces where civilians can get some basic supplies to see them through for another few days.

I have a lot of personal connections to Ukraine – I’ve lived there, I have Ukrainian friends and have worked with phenomenal Ukrainian NGOs in the past, including to document and address human rights violations arising from the armed conflict in the Donbas region since 2014. Despite my profound sadness and, frankly, horror about the war in Ukraine, my conversations with our NGO partners give me hope. Their incredible resilience in the face of the intense needs of their people, their communities, is a reminder for us all that, if we support each other and work together, we can save lives in this war.