Themes by tag: volunteers

Starting this month, the international relief group World Central Kitchen (WCK) is rolling out an updated food kit that, for the first time, includes a package designed specifically for children.

With families across Ukraine struggling to secure basic nutrition during the war, the new kits are meant to help children get the protein, vitamins, and minerals essential for growth, learning, and immune health.

The children’s package is added to WCK’s standard food kit and serves as a nutritional supplement. It includes ready-to-eat foods suitable for children ages 1 to 15, among them canned turkey, iron-rich bars, fruit purees, nut mixes, and cocoa with milk.

WCK says it plans to deliver thousands of the updated kits this month to communities across the Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Sumy regions.

The organization says it welcomes collaboration with media outlets, offering photo and video materials, access to distribution sites, and interviews with its staff to highlight the new initiative.

For reference: Since the start of russia’s full-scale military aggression, World Central Kitchen has been operating in every frontline region of Ukraine, responding during evacuations, supporting civilians after strikes on infrastructure, and working alongside the State Emergency Service. To date, the group has provided nearly 290 million meals, including more than 70 million hot meals and 10 million food kits. It has also supplied vegetable packages, seeds, clean water, and launched projects aimed at helping families become more self-sufficient.

• food
• volunteers

Before the full-scale invasion, Ihor Yefimenko’s Kharkiv-based company was engaged in vehicle repair. However, after February 24, 2022, his team pivoted and began producing Level 5 body armor for the military. After a relative lost toes due to an explosion caused by a landmine, Yefimenko realized that his team needed to develop protective gear for sappers and explosive ordnance disposal technicians.

They used a Canadian model as a base, adapted it to the needs of Ukrainian soldiers and rescuers, and began production. In 2025, the manufacturers obtained a patent for a system that protects legs from anti-personnel blast mines. The product now holds all NATO standard certifications and has intellectual property protection. Yefimenko assures that the Canadian prototype was further refined and that the Kharkiv version differs in design elements and materials.

Each boot weighs four kilograms, and the team uses 3D printers to manufacture the components. Yefimenko explains that the boots are not a panacea; they cannot prevent injury entirely, but they help users avoid traumatic amputation.

Ihor Yefimenko is available for interviews online or in person in Kharkiv, by prior arrangement.

• volunteers
• Kharkiv
• demining

At 23, Artem Yerokhin has taken on a mission that blends endurance with compassion. Once employed by a humanitarian organization, he lost his job after U.S. funding was cut. Instead of standing still, he decided to set out on foot across Ukraine.

Yerokhin mapped out a 1,200-kilometer route from Dnipro, a major city in central Ukraine, to Uzhhorod, a city in the country’s far west bordering Slovakia, and launched a charitable initiative called Spilnokrok, to raise one million hryvnias for wounded Ukrainian soldiers. 

Eighty-four days into his journey, he has already walked more than 2,000 kilometers and collected 350,000 hryvnias. Much of that support, he notes, has come in the form of cash donations along the way, something he hadn’t expected. Funds raised will help provide treatment, prosthetics, and rehabilitation for soldiers injured in combat.

Yerokhin pushes himself to cover roughly 30 kilometers a day. He says the physical challenge pales beside his motivation: supporting those who sacrificed their health in the war.

People can meet with him in person along his route to Uzhhorod, or reach out to him online by appointment to learn more about his effort.

• volunteers

Edward, a British volunteer who was severely injured in Pokrovsk, has started treatment to be fitted with a prosthetic arm at the Superhumans Center in Lviv. He has already received a lower limb prosthetic and has recently joined the center’s staff.

Edward came to Ukraine at the start of russia’s full-scale invasion, volunteering to help evacuate civilians from the Donetsk region. In January 2025, a russian drone struck an evacuation vehicle in Pokrovsk while he was driving. The attack left him critically injured, and doctors were forced to amputate both an arm and a leg.

• casualties
• russian crimes
• volunteers
• Lviv

In 2022, bicycles became lifelines for residents of Ukrainian cities affected by russian military aggression — Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Bucha, Irpin, and others. In some of these cities, public transportation was not operational and fuel was scarce.

Thus, the international campaign #BikesForUkraine was launched in May 2022. Over the past three years, more than 3,000 bicycles have been delivered to volunteers, medical workers, utility service employees, and displaced persons. A total of 90 communities, including de-occupied and frontline areas, have received assistance through the campaign.

Over 90 ambassadors from 20 countries in Europe and North America have supported the campaign. Supporters include non-governmental organizations, cycling communities, businesses, city municipalities, and concerned individuals. Some collect and repair used bicycles or send new ones, while others make financial donations. Recently, a resident of a city in the Netherlands collected used bicycles and personally drove them to Ukraine in a rented van.

By prior arrangement, journalists can cover how volunteers in Kyiv repair used bicycles that have arrived from abroad. Journalists can also interview campaign participants in Kyiv and foreigners who have contributed from overseas. Video materials about the #BikesForUkraine campaign are available as well.

Background: Campaign initiators include U-Cycle (NGO Association of Cyclists of Kyiv), NGO Eco City (Chernihiv), NGO “Youth Association Extreme Style” (Sumy), NGO City Reforms (Kharkiv), NGO FORZA (Uzhhorod), NGO VeloVector (Odesa), and NGO VeloFormat (Odesa)

• volunteers
• Kyiv

Matvii Suslov was 17 when he was preparing to build a school stadium in Niu-York, Donetsk Oblast. He already had a complete project, an agreement with the school, and the support of sponsors. Matvii hoped to inspire his peers by showing them how to make a positive impact through concrete action.

But the full-scale russian invasion changed everything. Matvii’s native village came under enemy occupation, and his home was destroyed by shelling. He shared his story with the Voices of Children charity, which supports children and families affected by the war, and became the face of a project highlighting children in the Donetsk region whose civic activism inspires others.

Today, 21-year-old Matvii lives in Kyiv and leads the tactical medicine department at the charity foundation Razom for Ukraine. He and his team provide tactical medical support to army units, supply training equipment to military training centers, and instruct new tactical medicine trainers. After the war, Matvii dreams of returning to his hometown of Niu-York.

Journalists can arrange to speak with Matvii Suslov both online and in person in Kyiv by prior appointment.

• volunteers
• Kyiv

Thomas Petty, 21, is a student from La Rochelle, France, studying business engineering. He has spoken extensively with Ukrainians and heard firsthand about the devastating losses of homes and loved ones caused by the russian invasion. Motivated to help, he initially considered volunteering within the European Union but realized he could make a greater impact by coming to Ukraine.

From September 7 to September 14, Thomas and a team of volunteers will work in a community in Kyiv Oblast that was heavily affected at the start of the full-scale war, helping to establish a new youth space. The volunteer camp is organized by the NGO Building Ukraine Together (BUR).

Journalists interested in speaking with Thomas can arrange interviews in Kyiv starting September 5 or during the volunteer project in the Kyiv region.

• volunteers

The NGO Building Ukraine Together (BUR) is launching a two-week volunteer camp in the village of Byshiv, Kyiv region, where volunteers from Ukraine and abroad will collaborate with local youth to create a new community space. The initiative aims to provide a safe, welcoming, and inspiring environment to replace what was lost during the early days of the full-scale war.

In 2022, the community found itself on the front line – some nearby villages were occupied, and Byshiv suffered extensive destruction due to its proximity to heavy fighting. The community lost many key institutions, including the House of Culture. Since then, young people have had no dedicated place to gather, learn, or socialize outside of school.

To respond to this need, BUR and the Byshiv community will convert a room into a proper youth space. This will become a hub for learning, creativity, and community life.

The youth space will be created during a two-shift BUR camp (September 7-14, 2025, and October 26-November 2, 2025). Each shift will bring together around 20 volunteers, half local, half from across Ukraine and abroad. Beyond the building work, evenings will feature cultural and educational programming: excursions, workshops, and team-building activities.

For reference: Building Ukraine Together (BUR) is an all-Ukrainian non-governmental organization that engages young people in volunteer activities and non-formal education, empowering them to take part in building a democratic Ukraine.

• reconstruction
• volunteers
• Kyiv

Anhelina Shostak, a native of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, now destroyed and under russian occupation, has devoted more than a decade to volunteer work, beginning with sewing Ukrainian flags. Her efforts started in 2014, when russia first launched its assault on eastern Ukraine. She delivered humanitarian aid to Ukrainian troops in the region and always included flags she had sewn herself.

On April 11, 2015, in Kyiv’s Independence Square, Shostak achieved her first record: a 27.2-meter friendship bracelet woven from blue and yellow ribbons, the longest of its kind. A year later, on June 18, 2016, she entered the Ukrainian Book of Records again with the largest embroidered flag, measuring 4.5 by 3 meters. Her third record came in August 2018, when she and fellow volunteers sewed a 20-by-6-meter flag. It was recognized as the largest flag lifted by balloons in the Joint Forces Operation area, funded by residents of the occupied territories.

When the full-scale war erupted, Shostak and her husband fled Bakhmut. Yet she continues her work, sewing Ukrainian flags to this day, including banners draped over the coffins of fallen soldiers.

Shostak can be reached in Kyiv, either online or in person, by prior appointment.

• culture
• volunteers
• women
• Kyiv

French benefactors have donated a dental ambulance to the FRIDA Ukraine medical volunteer mission for use in frontline areas. The vehicle will serve as a unique mobile clinic to provide free care to civilians, particularly children, in Ukraine’s frontline regions and in orphanages. This will enable FRIDA Ukraine doctors to reach the most remote communities where medical infrastructure is either non-existent or has been destroyed by the war.

The first mission will take place on August 21-22 in the Chernihiv oblast. For two days, the team of FRIDA Ukraine dentists will provide free dental treatment to residents of frontline areas.

French benefactors will join the medical team on this mission.

Journalists can learn more about this initiative and cover the medical mission.

• doctors
• volunteers
• Chernihiv