Overcoming Donbas blockade is the common goal of charitable organizations, humanitarian mission and the state
In March Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center presented an updated "Humanitarian Map of Donbas: the needs of local civilians and IDPs". During the roundtable Natalia Yemchenko, the member of Humanitarian Center's Supervisory Board, Director of Public Relations and Communications at SCM, shared her thoughts about possible overcoming of Donbas blockade and Humanitarian Center's directions of activity for Q2, 2015.
According to Natalia Yemchenko, there are two directions of activity, where the situation shall develop. The first one is legislative field, where we can and should work: these are the common efforts of Ukrainian and international charitable and volunteer organizations.
"It's about the fact that we faced a lot of legislative innovations, some of them were not discussed by humanitarian community, which is why they do not work. The rest of them shall be discussed, and processes shall be organized in the right way. This work on development and revision of the rules is great work, because the more the rules we have, especially non-working ones, the less the system of humanitarian assistance functions", - Natalia Yemchenko believes.
Recently, a special statement was made by UNO, which emphasized that people already suffer enough because of the war. That is why everybody needs simple and clear rules that would allow people to get the required humanitarian aid. As a matter of fact, this is the main message, which Humanitarian Center's specialists are trying to convey to legislators.
The second direction, according to Natalia Yemchenko, is the Center's activity itself and the help it can provide to people, who are caught in this unbearable situation. "Delivery of food, also known as "survival kits", to as many our countrymen as possible will remain the main priority for us. By the way, recently international organizations announced that they are going to deliver humanitarian aid to Ukraine for USD 316 mln. It is a big question, whether it works out or not, as international organizations are basically money managers, and to deliver these resources international donors are needed. But, certainly, the presence of international organizations in NGCA is a huge help, especially in view of limited access to food and medications in ATO area. – It is difficult to handle it alone, joint efforts are required "- Natalia Yemchenko shared.
Another important direction of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center's activity is psychological support to peaceful residents. A great number of problems have a pending character, so the main focus of our attention is children. The Humanitarian Center's specialists have already started their important work – they opened psychological support service in Kyiv and Donetsk, and a specialized center in Mariupol. Children come here with their parents for individual and group classes in game format to cope with trauma of war.
Besides, the Humanitarian Center will provide reliable information on the real situation that is happening with people in ATO area. "The whole Ukraine should understand that it is happening not with amorphous mass, but with real specific people. Once this understanding appears, the situation with legislative field and delivery of humanitarian aid will be changing automatically. Besides, civilians in ATO area and IDPs shall be provided with practical useful information that would help them to survive through this difficult period and not depend on humanitarian aid so much, as they do now. According to research results, not everyone prefers dependency. A lot of people would like to be responsible for their own lives, but for this matter they need timely and reliable information on what is happening on both sides of the contact line", - Natalia Yemchenko assures.
