More than 50,000 people have been provided with psychological assistance from Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center

Over 500 days of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center's operation psychological assistance has been provided to 49,000 children and 6,000 adults. These are the main performance results of the Humanitarian Center's Psychological service that has been helping the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions to cope the consequences of war.

"500 days of "Psychological assistance", one of the main directions of the Humanitarian Center, is 250 qualified specialists who were trained at the "War trauma" course. These are 11 regions of Ukraine and more than 70 kindergartens, schools and orphanages of Donbas that were covered by attention of the Humanitarian Center's psychologists. They came to the towns and villages under shelling, worked with injured children, with families who lost their relatives and loved ones, with internally displaced children, helping them with self-actualization", – Rimma Fil, the Center's Coordinator, shared.

Experts affirm that "war trauma" today is the mass phenomenon among Donbas residents, especially children. They suffer sleep and behaviour disorders, fear and anxiety, in more complex cases – psychosomatic diseases. That is why it is so important to help them cope with the consequences of hostilities on time.

Among the children provided with psychological assistance from the Humanitarian Center:

• 70% are from 4 to 8 years old;
• 21% are from 9 to 12 years old;
• 9% are from 13 to 16 years old.

"I know that psychological assistance provided by experts of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center is very effective, even over the long term. War trauma among children can manifest itself years later, the problems will only keep on growing. It is important to correct the changes in their behaviour on time, to work together with their parents, to teach their school teachers the methods of psychosocial support. This complex approach is the most effective, – Annette Lyth, UNICEF Representative for Protection of Child Rights, believes.

It should be noted that the programs that have a visible positive effect on the psyche of children, proposed by international and Ukrainian organizations, have not yet been adopted at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, and their approval is necessary to have the legal right to provide massive assistance in schools.

"Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center has been working with war trauma for 1.5 years. Today we have instruments, qualified employees and developed methodologies that we offered to the state. We understand that to get a maximum effect, the activity of psychologists shall be coordinated with the state. The "war trauma" problem should be solved in long-term perspective. Because traumatized children grow up and become traumatized adults", – Darya Kasyanova, project and program manager at the Humanitarian Center, says.