Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center can be closed only on one condition – Natalia Yemchenko

"Last year in May Rinat Akhmetov Foundation for Development of Ukraine started evacuating people from the areas of military actions. First these were family-type orphanages and residential care homes from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. These were the points of maximum confrontation back then. Along with evacuation our employees were dealing with people's accommodation. During the whole last summer and fall we evacuated about 40,000 people, approximately 8,000 of them were resettled. And all of this was done by employees of the Foundation, as they say, "just-in-time". First people were taken to recreational sanatoriums that belong to SCM. Over the course of time the stream of people, who wanted to escape from war, was increasing. In fall we were accommodating people in Kyiv hostels", – Natalia Yemchenko, Director of Public Relations and Communications at SCM and Supervisory Board Member at the Humanitarian Center, shared during her speech at practical conference for socially active people "War and Peace: the birth of new values".

When the specialists of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, who were dealing with problems of IDPs, realized that they cannot pay sufficient attention to their priority projects, the idea to establish the Humanitarian Center appeared. "Initially it was planned that Humanitarian Center would function till the end of war. Everybody had an expectation that it would end soon and everything would last for 2-3 months. We thought we would lend our shoulder, be a so-called crutch for the state, and later it would find a solution to the problems of displaced persons. But the reality turned out differently", – Natalia Yemchenko shared.

At that period evacuation and accommodation were the main directions of the Humanitarian Center's activity, they were later supplemented by medicine and help with food. And when in January-February the mass childbirth started in the area of military actions, the Humanitarian Center was issuing kits for pregnant women as part of "Help.Health" project.

According to Natalia Yemchenko, the Humanitarian Center, as an instrument of quick response, can be closed till the end of 2015. "This happens is case no other escalation and no round of war happen. There will be no need in it. At the same time there still will be topics that, unfortunately, will require the intervention of humanitarian organizations for many years. And first of all it is psychological assistance. The example of Ireland is very illustrative for us. After 20 years their specialists continue working with people, who had war trauma", – Director of Public Relations and Communications at SCM mentioned.

Knowing that people require such kind of help immediately, Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center trained qualified psychologists, who work throughout Ukraine, including Donbas. In late May 250 specialists received international certificates of crisis psychologists training as part of "Trauma of War" course.