“A year has passed and the headlines on your phone have changed, but as thousands more refugees flee to Poland daily, our job is far from done.”

Madeleine, AHAH Ukraine Crisis Relief Volunteer

ONE YEAR ON

February 24, 2023 marks the one year anniversary of  Russia’s violent and unfathomable invasion of Ukraine, and the devastating war persists.  Thousands have been killed and injured, and millions more have been forced from their home.

Throughout October and November 2021, Russian troops assembled at the Ukrainian border.  On February 21, 2022, the estimated 190,000 troops encircling Ukraine were ordered into Ukrainian territory. In the early morning of February 24th, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Russia to declare that Ukraine would defend its independence. Later that day, Russian explosions hit cities across Ukraine, killing innocent people and igniting an uproar across the globe.

The unprovoked invasion quickly spiraled into the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since WWII, displacing over ten million Ukrainians.

All Hands and Hearts (AHAH) has been working in Poland, which has received the highest number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe, since early 2022. Our Ukraine Crisis Relief program is focused on the critical need to provide shelter for Ukrainian families who continue to flee from invaded Ukraine.

Spoken through the lens of two Ukrainian women whose lives and their families were upended by the war, watch this video from AHAH’s Ukraine Crisis Relief program to hear their stories.

ALL HANDS AND HEARTS UKRAINE CRISIS RELIEF

Our initial response work began in March 2022 and included supporting the transportation of families across the Poland border to safe territories. From July to September of 2022, AHAH’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) worked in Southern Poland, connecting with local and international partners to assess the need and identify the areas where our expertise could be utilized.

In October, volunteers arrived on base to support the project’s second phase, which focuses on expanding and winterizing Ukrainian refugee shelters in Poland. While in Ukraine, we are collaborating with a local partner, Save Ukraine, to build a network of 92 transitional shelters for housing internally displaced Ukrainian families as well as winterized mass tent shelters used for evacuations. According to the UNHCR, Europe recorded 7.8 million refugees fleeing Ukraine, with over one million fleeing to Poland, making it the country receiving the highest number of refugees among its neighbors. The UNHCR is anticipating an additional million refugees crossing into Poland for the winter months. It’s clear that after a year of supporting Ukrainian refugees, our work is far from over.