We are proud to share the good news of our support for the people of Ukraine. Humana Ukraine-sponsored food donations have already been produced and delivered to the Brovary Municipal Hospital in Kyiv Region, the Children’s Rehabilitation Centre and Vocational Technical School, and the Velyka Dymerka Social Support Centre. Humana Ukraine has sponsored the production and distribution of 3,350 parcels.
The lead organization of the Action for food production and distribution in war-stricken Ukraine is Human Bridge, a Swedish organization. The food parcels are produced and delivered to Kyiv by a small Ukrainian food processing company. In cooperation with the Oliva Foundation, the parcels are distributed to the beneficiary institutions of the Kyiv region. Oliva staff, our local partner, reports that “despite another massive shelling of Ukrainian territory by Russia again today, we managed to distribute food parcels to two more institutions as planned.” The beneficiary institutions do distribute food parcels to families in need. The municipal hospital kitchen may use the donated products to feed their patients.
The foodstuffs include one kilo of flour, two kilos of pasta, sunflower oil, canned beans, canned chicken and biscuits packed in one box. To know what to do better, we try to listen to what people say about the content of a food parcel. Our partners report that people appreciate the food parcels they receive, even more than we expected. The beneficiary institutions that collaborate in the Humana Food Aid Campaign provide comments and suggestions. For example, the Brovary Children’s Rehabilitation Centre asks for more sweets and baby food, and canned goods, and the hospital needs more oil and butter.
The students of the Brovary Vocational School, most of them are orphans or children from large families, who live in the school’s dorm. Some of them are studying at the Faculty of Culinary Arts and Nutrition and already know how to cook professionally. We can be sure that they will make a lot of pancakes and dumplings with wheat flour. From time to time, the students cook on outdoor cookers. There is often no electricity in the school because the target of enemy gunfire is the electricity grid.
The students value high-quality products which they will use in their cooking. Under never-ending gunfire, food is increasingly scarce in Kyiv. As always, poor, disabled, widowed and orphaned children are the first and worst to suffer. The people of Kyiv are very happy to receive the support of Humana Ukraine in the form of food, especially at this critical time. We hope to expand the scope of the Action to other cities in Ukraine. As Oliva staff tell us, it is hard to overstate the timing and importance of this project.
