Please help me support orphans and evacuated children in Ukraine. 

I'm a self-funded humanitarian aid volunteer who has been helping Ukrainian people since the start of the war. I visit evacuation and refugee shelters all over the country, including frontline villages, taking essential supplies and giving support to those forced from their homes through occupation and destruction of their villages, towns and cities.

I’ve done crafts activities with children living in the subways and played games with others sheltering in bunkers or being cared for in hospitals. I've taken essential items such as bedding, clothes, toiletries and basic medical equipment to orphanages, IDP centres, hospitals and specialist facilities caring for teenage children with psychological and psychiatric problems. Tens of thousands of people are living in makeshift accommodation where they will stay until it's safe for them to return and their homes are rebuilt. As they cope with the upheaval and distress, please will you support me when I next return at the end of May? I need money to cover diesel costs and for buying bags of groceries, simple toiletries and basic medicines which I'll take along with donations of equipment for young people. Bank of Montreal has donated laptops and i-phones which I'll take to children who have lost all their belongings so they can continue online schooling. Artists in Norfolk have filled my van with great quality arts and crafts equipment. Neighbours have pledged items for babies and children. My van is almost full!

Why am I doing this? At the start of the Russian invasion, I drove a van loaded with emergency aid across Europe to the Polish/Ukrainian border as part of a humanitarian aid convoy. When we arrived, it was freezing; there were no facilities for the confused and distressed people arriving from wartorn Ukraine, many having queued for days to get across to safety. I returned a couple of weeks later to help run a small tent on the scrubland next to the border gates offering help, privacy and warmth to women and babies and giving out nappies, formula milk, food and sanitary items.

With other volunteers, we mustered bedding, toiletries and dried foods which we took into Ukraine to emergency shelters which were springing up in schools and town halls in the western regions. I took equipment for newborn babies such as sterilising units, bottles, formula milk, nappies and hygiene products to a maternity hospital. Thanks to generous donors, we bought washing machines and microwaves for a mother and child facility and blow-up mattresses for another centre. Donors in London paid for a fully equipped ambulance which I drove to Ukraine.

Having brought up three children, it is the young people my heart goes out to. Kids have been forced to separate from their homes and friends and now live in makeshift dormitories in unfamiliar places. Most schools have been requisitioned by the local authorities to provide shelters for people fleeing from the 'hot' areas in the east. Hundreds of schools, kindergartens and even universities have been occupied, destroyed or looted. Online schooling when there's power and internet connectivity is sporadic and disrupted. Recreation centres are closed. I want to help alleviate the confusion, anxiety, stress and boredom which lead to demoralisation and depression. 

All donations go directly to those in plight. I spend nothing on administration, overheads or salaries. My time, energy and dedication are given freely with love and without red tape. I've spent all the money from my original mission and have now increased the target to fund the next mission. ALL cash donations, no matter the size, are valuable and vital.

Thank you very, very much. Дякую