Home for Those Who Lost Everything: How the First Hostel for Mariupol Residents Was Created in Dnipro in Partnership With the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation

In Mariupol, Nadiya Astanina worked in the city’s social hostel, where since 2014 they accepted IDPs from the front-line settlements of Donetsk region. Having escaped from the burning city after the outbreak of the full-scale war, she herself became an IDP and now helps her townsmen. Nadiya told the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation’s Museum of Civilian Voices about how temporary housing for Mariupol residents was created in Dnipro.

“One of the main issues that residents raise and that concerns and hurts them is the provision of temporary housing,” says Nadiya, who currently serves as the director of the Mariupol social hostel, which was opened on the basis of IAmMariupol centre in Dnipro.

The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation contributed to the creation of comfortable housing for IDPs from the City of Mary [Mariupol] by arranging the hostel’s common use areas for adults and children as part of the pilot project #IAmMariupolHousing. 

“The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation provided some household appliances, namely refrigerators and freezers. It furnished the co-working space with furniture and provided laptops. It furnished our beautiful hallway: a coffee machine to make it comfortable for people to stay here, and the sofas. It furnished the children’s room. Everything was taken into account for children of different ages, to make it interesting for them,” says Nadiya.

In October 2022, renovation work started in the first hostel. It was ready to accept its tenants in just four months. This hostel became a new temporary home for 127 IDPs from Mariupol, and 55 of them are children, 7 of whom have disabilities.

The Foundation will continue to support the project: during the year, about 4,000 IDPs from Mariupol belonging to the most vulnerable social categories will be able to receive such housing. To submit an application, contact the Mariupol City Administration or IAmMariupol centres.

You can find the story of Nadiya Astanina on the portal of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation: 
 "Museum of Civilian Voices" - "The greatest need of IDPs from Mariupol is temporary housing…"