Themes by tag: volunteers

The Lviv Defense Cluster (LDC) is a professional volunteer association that began its work in February 2022. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, the team united specialists, manufacturers, businesses, and volunteers to create high-quality personal protective equipment.

Through the joint efforts of the team, donors, and partners, over 100,000 bulletproof vests have been manufactured and donated free of charge to the Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine, critical infrastructure workers, journalists, Ukrainian Railway employees, and other specialists working in front-line or dangerous regions.

A separate focus for the LDC has been protecting civilian medics: since 2022, over 4,000 specialized bulletproof vests have safeguarded medical workers in front-line areas.

Another important initiative is evacuation kits for children (comprising a bulletproof vest and a helmet). 550 such kits are used by units, including the White Angels crew, during the evacuation of children from combat zones.

Currently, the LDC continues to provide bulletproof vests on a targeted basis to utility workers in the Kherson and Sumy oblasts, who perform critically important work under shelling.

The Lviv Defense Cluster financially contributes to a number of social and rehabilitation projects, such as the “Tytanovi” project (prosthetics for Ukrainian soldiers) and the “Heroes Among Us” project (helping businesses adapt to working with veterans and facilitating their return to civilian life). Furthermore, the cluster’s specialists provide organizational and advisory support to defense technology startups, helping them find investors and establish cooperation with other manufacturers.

By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with LDC representatives in Lviv or online. It is also possible to see children’s and medical bulletproof vests and obtain photo and video materials.

• volunteers
• Lviv

The Frame workshop, which converts ordinary vehicles into transport for evacuating the wounded from the front, appeared in Poltava in 2024. Its creators, Ihor and Polina, were combat medics with the Hospitallers. Thus, from their own experience, they know what a maximally convenient vehicle for evacuation from the front line should be like.

The workshop makes casevac vehicles meticulously detailed: with optimized space for medics to work, a high level of safety for the wounded and crew, and fully equipped with necessary gear and electrical systems for effective work in field conditions.

A team of over 20 people, which includes veterans, works daily to transform ordinary off-road vehicles into effective evacuation machines.

The Frame team has already converted more than 70 vehicles for various units. The workshop is funded by business and donations from subscribers.

Journalists can speak with Ihor and Polina in person in Poltava or online, by prior arrangement.

Background: The Hospitallers Medical Battalion has been operating on the front line since 2014. Its crews conduct dozens of evacuations daily along almost the entire front line. The Hospitallers have been teaching tactical medicine since 2015 and pre-medical care since 2018. Their instructors are certified by NAEMT (the American National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians), UVMA (the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy), and other organizations.

• volunteers
• Poltava

The “Unbreakables” team, united by Mariupol volunteer Mykhailo Puryshev, consists of volunteers who provide critical assistance to civilians in frontline areas. At an Invincibility Point in eastern Ukraine, residents can access free laundry services, hot showers, shelter from shelling, meals, and hot tea. The site also provides access to electricity, water, and mobile communication.

In addition to helping people, the volunteers care for abandoned animals, feeding them and rescuing them from enemy attacks.

The team’s humanitarian work is funded by thousands of compassionate supporters who have set up micro-donation subscriptions starting from as little as one hryvnia per day.

Journalists are invited to visit the Invincibility Point by prior arrangement to witness firsthand the conditions of civilians living near the front line, who often lack light, water, access to shops, and medical care. The visit provides an opportunity to observe the volunteers’ work and speak with local residents directly.

• volunteers

The Hospitails’ mission brings together veterinarians and volunteers to evacuate animals from Ukraine’s active combat areas.

One of the key Hospitallers voluntary organization’s efforts first sprang into action in June 2023, after the occupiers blew up the Kakhovka dam, endangering countless animals. Since then, Hospitails has operated systematically, equipping a fully functional mobile operating room that allows the team to vaccinate, treat, and perform surgeries on animals directly in the field.

In its first year, the project rescued and rehomed roughly 200 animals. The team vaccinated and treated 243 animals during field missions, performed 168 surgical and sterilization procedures, and distributed 10 tons of humanitarian aid.

Journalists can cover the team’s work by prior arrangement.

• animals
• doctors
• 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