Over two years 1,100,000 people got help from Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center

Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center is two years old. More than one million of saved lives, over nine million survival kits, hundreds of thousands tons of food – these and other numbers characterize both the amount of work and the scale of disaster over the past two years.

The Humanitarian Center was established on August 6, 2014 to provide the maximum assistance to civilian population of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Center united the resources and possibilities of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, SCM Group's businesses and Shakhtar Football Club.

On Thursday, August 4, the Humanitarian Center's Director Oleksandr Vyshniakov and its Coordinator Rimma Fil opened a program called "Peaceful Summer for Donbas Children 2016" in Albatros summer camp on the coast of Azov Sea. For the second year in a row, children from the "grey" zone and non-government-controlled areas have an opportunity to rest and get healthier. This year 500 children will improve their health.

"The Center continues to work. This program is created for children to get distracted from difficult everyday life at least for a while and spend some happy time under the peaceful sky.  Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center has been operating for two years. Over this period 1,100,000 people were provided with assistance", - Oleksandr Vyshniakov said at the opening of the first shift in the summer camp.

"Rinat Akhmetov will keep on helping Donbas residents. He will help as long as this assistance is needed", - Rimma Fil emphasized.

Note!

Key programs and performance results over two years of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center's operation: 

Humanitarian Aid program covers the basic food requirement. There is an organized delivery and issuance of food to the most vulnerable Donbas civilians on both sides of the contact line. During two years of its operation Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center sent 232 convoys and 5,309 twenty-ton trucks to Donbas, they delivered more than 105,000 tons of food. Mobile issuance teams visited 425 settlements, thereby they covered 90% of the frontline settlements and villages along the contact line. As a result, Donbas civilians on both sides of the contact line were issued the total of 9,153,216 adult and children food packages.

Targeted Assistance program provides support here and now to those people, who faced difficult life circumstances.  Assistance is primarily provided to children for urgent treatment and surgeries. 6,622 people got the Center's help for medical treatment, including 2,312 children. The Center also provides children and adults with life-saving medications and helps with rehabilitation of injured kids as part of "Medications for Children" and "Cardiac Care" programs.  Over two years of the Center's operation targeted assistance was provided to 44,970 people.

Peaceful Summer for Donbas Children! The project is aimed at organization of summer vacation and health improvement of children affected by the armed conflict. In 2015 2,200 children attended summer centres located in non-government-controlled areas, particularly in Donetsk, Yenakiieve, Khartsyzk and Komsomolsk.  During two summer seasons 1,100 children get an opportunity to rest and improve their health in the camps.

Psychological Assistance for Children program, the main phase of which was implemented in 2015, was created to help children and their families to cope with the consequences of stress caused by the armed conflict in Donbas. Before that the Center trained 250 psychologists in the "War Trauma" course.  As a result, 49,901 children and 5,979 adults were provided with primary psychological assistance by professionals of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center. As of today the psychologists work with children across the whole territory of Ukraine. The Center continues supporting the qualification of the trained specialists – there are trainings and seminars regularly held for them. Two professionals keep on working at the Humanitarian Center and dealing with the most difficult cases among children.

 Help. Health. The project was successfully operating from November 2014 till February 2015 and was aimed at providing medical and pharmaceutical assistance to elderly people, pregnant women and children. The Center issued 1,000 mother and child kits, 10,000 medical kits for elderly people and 20 first-aid sets for bomb shelters. 6,718 Donbas residents received insulin. 2,412 birthing mother kits were distributed as well. Over the entire project implementation period 20,060 people got help from the Humanitarian Center.

Evacuation and Accommodation program was implemented in 2014 and provided emergency assistance to women with children, disabled and elderly people due to the beginning of Donbas armed conflict. Over the program implementation period the Center evacuated 39,462 Donbas civilians, 14,784 of them were children. In 2014 6,939 people were provided with temporary accommodation in recreation centres of Odesa, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions.