The “Ocean of Kindness” amidst the Desert of War

23 Червня 2022 by Olga Zhurbenko

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Public organizations of people with disabilities (NGOs) have been actively involved in helping victims since the very first days of the full-scale war. The NGOs’ leaders include many women who sometimes do the impossible to help Ukraine. Such women are described in the project “Enhancing the Leadership of Women with Disabilities in Gender-oriented Humanitarian Responses”, which is implemented by the National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine (NAPD) and funded by the United Nations Women’s Fund for Peace and Humanitarian Aid (WPHF).

Please meet Olga Volkova, a project mobilizer, who heads an NGO for people with disabilities “The Ocean of Kindness” in Dnipro city (NAPD member organization). She joined in helping those who need it most and also initiated the creation of a Center of temporary stay for people with disabilities, elderly people and their family members in Dnipro city.

Photos provided by NGO “Ocean of Kindness”

“February 24 was a horrible day,” Olga recalls how she met the first day of the full-scale war. “That day, in our organization we were going to amend the charter and open a Center – in the city downtown, without accommodation option, and we had already found an office space for that, redecorated and adjusted it for our needs. And that day I realize that all the plans will have to be changed. At first, we evacuated the Dnipro city residents with disabilities. With comfort, boarding in a specialized place having platforms at a comfortable level. There were specially allocated passenger cars and direct trains on which people would go abroad at once.”

445 people moved out that way. Almost all of them were people with disabilities or those who accompanied them. And then, vice versa, we started to meet evacuated people in Dnipro. Having seen the poor conditions that people with disabilities faced in Dnipro, we decided in our NGO “Ocean of Kindness” to create a Center of temporary stay for people fleeing the war. The Dnipro municipal executive committee allocated the premises for that purpose, and the city’s Health Department helped us with beds and many other first necessity things. The ward-rooms were equipped with all the necessary things: orthopedic beds, bed linens, and accessible washroom. Mothers with their babies have special rooms there. Everyone is provided with the essentials. The Center was opened on 24 March 2022, and since then 869 people have stayed there. The Center provides a temporary shelter for people with disabilities, elderly people, and their family members.

Photos provided by NGO “Ocean of Kindness”

“Among the visitors of our center, there are people who suffered a stroke, or he so-called “lying patients”, who turn into bedridden patients for many years if they do not get necessary rehabilitation and socialization,” Olga Volkova tells us about their center’s work. “When they come back to their senses after getting to us, the nurses take them out on wheelchairs for a walk. When, after months spent in basements, the elderly ladies obtain new life – haircuts and manicures which they hadn’t had before the war either, they come to life, they flourish, and even start walking using a walker. Despite the war, they want to live again!”

During all the seven days while a person is staying in the Center of temporary stay, the “Ocean of Kindness” NGO builds groups and searches for possibilities to transfer the person to either Western Ukraine, or abroad – for a permanent place of residence until the war ends.

Photos provided by NGO “Ocean of Kindness”

The students of Dnipro State Medical University work as nurses and orderlies in the Center of temporary stay. And recently, Olga and her organization conducted a very useful training to teach volunteers and medical workers how to properly evacuate people with disabilities. The goal of the training is to help those who evacuate people with disabilities and bedridden patients to do it in such a way that neither the evacuators, nor the evacuated are hurt.

Photos provided by NGO “Ocean of Kindness”

The “Ocean of Kindness” NGO cooperates with many volunteer organizations, carries on its good work, and gives a ray of light to everyone who needs it. The National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine, jointly with the United Nations Women’s Fund for Peace and Humanitarian Aid, has also supported the humanitarian mission of the Center. We are thankful to Olga, we are proud of her and everyone who have not stood apart in these hard and decisive times for the whole country.

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The project “Enhancing the Leadership of Women with Disabilities in Gender-Oriented Humanitarian Responses in Ukraine” aims at strengthening the leadership and participation of women’s NGOs and networks of women with disability and women raising children with disabilities in gender-oriented humanitarian responses.

The United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is a unified global financial mechanism designed exclusively to support the participation of women in peacebuilding and humanitarian responses. WPHF is a flexible and rapid financing tool supporting quality interventions to enhance the capacity of local women to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities. WPHF is an innovative partnership among its member states, the UN, and the civil society, with all the stakeholders represented in its global Financial Council.

Additional information on the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund and its activities across the globe can be obtained on the Fund’s webpage: www.WPHFund.org and www.WPHFund.org/