Assistance to the residents of 400 Donbas villages and settlements. A year of mobile volunteers' operation

Over the year village residents in Donetsk region were issued 143,500 survival kits by mobile teams of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center. This was announced by Rimma Fil, the Humanitarian Center's Coordinator, during the online conference in 'Segodnya Multimedia’.   

The aid was delivered to 425 settlements. These are settlements in the "grey zone", districts in non-government-controlled areas and towns in the peaceful areas with many IDPs. The total distance covered by volunteers is 60,000 kilometres. 

"The goal set by Rinat Akhmetov was: helping the maximum number of the most vulnerable people, such as senior citizens, children and disabled people. And the Center found the most effective way to deliver humanitarian aid to remote settlements. With the help of mobile teams we managed to issue food to a great number of people. They were forgotten and abandoned. The hostilities are still going on in the "grey zone", many houses are destroyed. People are not living, they are surviving there. It is important for them to be remembered and provided with the most essential things", – Rimma Fil shared. 

The volunteers have already delivered food to the "hottest spots", where hostilities never stop, but there are still many local residents staying there. These are Pisky, Opytne, Avdiivka, Kodema, Kirove, Ocheretyne, Vodiane, Novotroitske, Hranitne, Verkhniotoretske, Vynohradne, Chermalyk, Fedorivka, Myrne, Pishchovyk, Mayorsk and Artemove.     

The "grey zone" residents are mainly elderly and disabled people. There are also many families with babies. In Opytne settlement hostilities were taking place 500 metres away from the issuing point.  But people did not pay attention to shell explosions. After getting their survival kit they unpacked the food and made a fire nearby, so that they cook some food.  It turned out that the village residents had to feed themselves like this every day. There is no gas and electricity in the settlement for more than a year. There are 43 people living there, they are staying in the basement of a destroyed three-storey building.

Most of the mobile volunteer teams are from Donbas. They feel the pain from the whole situation like no one else would. Almost all of them have families and babies. One of the volunteers is a guy with disabilities, he can't hear and doesn't speak.

"We have three mobile teams working on both sides of the contact line. These are 15 people, two of them are women. The war not only hardened people's hearts, but also made them more sympathetic and responsive to the distress of others. These people became volunteers answering the call of their hearts. During the war they all became united by one willing: helping people. And they are ready to risk their lives and continue taking trips for this goal. All the relevant information about the upcoming trips of mobile teams is updated on the Humanitarian Center's website", – Rimma Fil said.