LHI Looks Back on 2023

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

LHI’s COO Walker, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation Jaron, and Founder and Director Hayley distributed aid to survivors of the earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria in February.

Looking back over the past year, we cannot believe all you have helped us to do! Here are the highlights!

The LHI Community Center in Serres, Greece

LHI’s Director of Monitoring and Evaluation Jaron and founder of our Utah programs Carlissa lent some elbow grease to improvement projects at the LHI Community Center in Serres.

It was a year of continued growth and innovation at the LHI Community Center, which is located near two refugee camps in Serres, Greece. The LHI Greece team was thrilled to receive new computers for the education program and new shelving for the community center’s aid warehouse. After talking with the women who attend programs at the Female Friendly Space, the team also adjusted the way we distribute clothing, school supplies, baby items and other aid. Instead of handing out parcels, the team instead created “free shops” where beneficiaries can select their own items. This small change not only provides people with a sense of dignity, but also brings a lot of excitement and joy.

The LHI Greece team set up a free shop where parents could shop for baby items including these handmade teddy bears.

utah programs

LHI team members and volunteers loaded this container of aid for Jordan in October.

Our Utah team prepared and shipped 18 containers of material aid to places like Bangladesh, where thousands of Rohingya refugees living in a large refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar were impacted by a fire in March, Afghanistan, where 6.6 million people have been internally displaced by conflict and natural disasters, and Gaza, where over 80% of the population has been displaced. The team also sent 7 shipments to the US/Mexico border to help shelters there provide warm clothing, hygiene products, and baby kits to migrants.

The US Office for Refugee Resettlement provides local resettlement agencies with a list of items that must be in apartments of resettled refugees. If the items aren't donated, they must be purchased from the family's small stipend. LHI's Utah team relies on donations from you to keep our warehouse stocked so that we can provide all the items resettled refugees need!

The Welcome Program has grown so much that we had to expand our warehouse! So far this year, LHI volunteers have set up 285 apartments for refugees resettling in Utah. And, in addition to our long-standing partnerships with the International Rescue Committee and Catholic Community Services, LHI is now working with Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection to make sure that resettled refugees in Logan, Utah come home to an apartment furnished with everything they need.

ukraine

The battery powered incubators you helped us provide put to good use at Bashtanka Hospital in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.

Last year, we asked you to help us get Ukrainians through a cold and uncertain winter and you responded! We were able to provide generators, battery powered infant incubators, sleeping bags and long underwear throughout Ukraine. Our teams in Ukraine have also been able to get consistent material, medical and psychological aid to frontline communities all year long.

LHI's Ukraine country director Serhii (center) organized LHI's response to the dam collapse, including finding this truck which pumped thousands of tons of water out of homes and businesses.

When the Kakhovka Dam in Kherson province ruptured in June, our teams responded not only by helping those displaced from their homes, but also by pumping thousands of tons of water out of homes and businesses. 

Moldova

Participants in the Story Time Project performed some of the Ukranian folk tales they had read for family and friends!

Looking back on all the work our Moldova team has done with Ukrainian refugees, it is hard to believe that our community center in Balti and our Storytime Project are not even a year old! Both programs provide social emotional support activities for participants and keep Ukrainian language and culture alive.

Children at the LHI Community Center in Balti participate in a yoga class, part of the social emotional supports offered to Ukrainian refugees.

jordan

LHI Founder and Director Hayley Smith toured one of the modular classrooms LHI was able to build for Syrian refugee children in Jordan.

In Jordan, it’s all about kids and kids! The first set of kids are the Syrian refugee children who have benefitted from the 3 modular classrooms we built this year. Because Jordanian schools are already at capacity, building classrooms means that Syrian children can attend school. 

This family turned the 2 milk goats they received from LHI into a herd of 25 in just 2 years!

The second set of kids are the 1,200 Shami milk goats we have distributed to Syrian refugee families. The families who benefited had been goat herders in Syria, but had to leave their herds behind when they fled civil war. Having milk goats allows these families to improve their family’s nutrition and move towards self-sufficiency as they sell milk and grow their herd. One family we visited this year had turned the two milk goats they received two years ago into 25! The income they earned from goat milk and goat products allowed them to leave the refugee camp and rent a home. 

emergency response

LHI's COO Walker distributed aid to an earthquake survivor in Turkey.

LHI specializes in responding to emergency situations quickly, talking to the people impacted, and finding out what they most need. In February, we were able to assist both Turkish and Syrian people impacted by earthquakes by providing medical and psychological first aid, hygiene kits, and food packages. 

LHI responded to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza quickly, finding partners on the ground to help us source aid and get it to civilians who need it in Gaza.

In October, we arrived in Egypt and got right to work finding the right partners to help us get aid to the over one million people displaced in the Gaza Strip. We established a partnership with the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) who helped us get food and medicine into Gaza.

We Couldn’t Have Done It Without You!

Whether you are an LHI volunteer or a donor, whether you’ve tied blankets or assembled hygiene kits for a service project, or whether you are a partner or a grant provider, you are a part of our team. Thank you for your support this year. We look forward to working together again in 2024 to meet needs around the world. Simply humanitarian.

Field Journal: Celebrating Summer Successes in Basarabeasca, Moldova

by LHI Volunteers Davide and Thomas

Thomas and Davide, our outstanding international volunteers in Basarabeasca, Moldova, concluded their role as summer camp counselors and teachers by helping to plan an end-of-summer extravaganza! We thank Thomas and Davide for their incredible work this summer. We know the town of Basarabeasca will miss them terribly!

Davide, Thomas, and Edu pose for a group photo outside the Phoenix Center with the campers who made their summer unforgettable!

 August 13th 2023, Basarabeasca, Moldova

Our fourth week at the Phoenix Center kicked off with two full days dedicated to preparing for a significant event—a grand end-of-summer party for the kids! 

Thomas and I spent Tuesday and Wednesday fine-tuning every small detail. As volunteers, we played a significant role in setting up sports games and assisting the kids in practicing various exercises they would showcase to their parents and an official jury on Thursday during a competition. Simultaneously, invitations were sent out, food and beverages were procured, and by Thursday, everything was primed. For the occasion, additional members from the LHI Moldova team traveled to Basarabeasca to offer their support and participate in the festivities. Everyone was excited to have our Director of Field Operations, Edoardo, and our photographer, Octavian, join for the day.

Children competed in fun and creative contests. The winners looked forward to collecting their awards!

After a morning of final preparations and anticipation, the celebrations started around 2 p.m. The event began with sports competitions among the kids. They were divided into two teams under two captains— Thomas and me. In between competitions, other beneficiaries of the center performed choreographed dances, both traditional and contemporary. Once everything concluded, all kids from the two teams were presented with awards, and the center's director, Clara, delivered a speech expressing gratitude to everyone involved, including Edoardo, us, and all the others who had contributed to the effort and work in the past weeks. The remainder of the event unfolded smoothly, featuring entertainers for the children, courtyard dances, and a final soccer match. The atmosphere was joyful and, and everyone was left content.

Campers enjoyed showing off their dance moves!

In the evening, Clara organized a staff dinner to celebrate the end of the summer camp, which had occupied the center and its staff for the past several weeks. The mayor and deputy-mayor of Basarabeasca were also in attendance, offering their support for the project, acknowledging our presence, and once again expressing their gratitude for our contributions. On our part, we extended our thanks to the mayor, deputy-mayor, Clara, and the entire staff for their warm and kind welcome. The dinner stretched on for hours, creating a wonderfully pleasant occasion shared with the entire center team.

Edu, LHI Director of Field Operations in Moldova, and Clara, the director of the Phoenix Center, enjoy the day’s festivities.

Friday saw a quieter atmosphere at the center, but a new project was on the horizon. In the late afternoon, a group of artists from Romania arrived to commence work on two graffiti pieces on the center's exterior walls. This collaboration involved a Romanian NGO and the Romanian Culture Institute. After an initial inspection on Friday, the artists returned to start their work on Saturday and throughout the weekend. Given their need for access to the Center, we ended up spending the entire weekend assisting them, even on Sunday.

It was an incredibly eventful week that marked the conclusion of the summer camp and held significant importance for our stay here. Our bond with the center's community grew even stronger, and we received heartfelt and appreciative feedback on our efforts – a truly important validation. We are glad to have played a part in this project thus far.

To find out more about LHI’s work in Moldova, please click here!

Field Journal: Summer in Basarabeasca, Moldova Part II

by LHI Volunteers Davide and Thomas

Davide and Thomas started week two by introducing the book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers to the campers.

If you missed Part I, check it out here.

Two of our amazing international volunteers, Thomas from the UK and Davide from Italy, have been spending their summer volunteering at an LHI-sponsored community center in Basarabeasca, Moldova. We are excited to share Thomas and Davide’s travel journal, starting from week 2!

July 31st 2023, Monday, Basarabesca, Moldova

LHI volunteers – second week report

The second week in Basarabeasca marked the beginning of our leading our own activities within the community center. We decided to focus on the group of children participating in the daily summer camp, and thought it would be helpful to build most of our activities around a story.

We started with reading a very short picture book to the group, reading in English while providing a Russian translation. The story, Stuck by Oliver Jeffers, is about a little boy that gets his kite stuck in a tree, and, in trying to get it back, throws into the same tree a long list of objects, from the most ordinary to the most absurd. From here, we led several activities, all aimed at both helping the children learn English and having lots of fun at the same time! We made flashcards with vocabulary from the story, learned to make our own kites, drew the tree from the story and along with all the objects the kids would choose to throw at it. All along, we tried to constantly practice the vocabulary from the story.

The campers were excited to try out the kites they made using the story Stuck as inspiration!

The results were extremely positive: kids participated with interest, had fun, and played together while learning some English. On one of the last days of the week, Sonia, a girl from Ukraine, even created her own game, using ours as an inspiration. Our original flashcards had drawings, English vocabulary words, and their translation in Russian. Sonia took this idea a step further, making cards in Ukrainian and Russian to play with us and the other children.

Campers created their own version of the tree in stuck and had a great time deciding what they would throw into the tree.

At the end of the second week, relationships with the staff of the center were also very positive. Day after day, they started to trust us more and give us more responsibility, both inviting us to participate in their activities and giving us the space to implement ours. At the end of the week, for instance, they asked us to organize the outside sport morning activities for the day. 

The town of Basarabeasca has been very welcoming. People ask us what we are doing here, and they are glad to know we are volunteers. Even if it has been just two weeks, we already feel that we are having an impact on the community.

Click here to learn more about our programs in Moldova.

Field Journal: Summer in Basarabeasca, Moldova Part I

by LHI Volunteers Davide and Thomas

Thomas has volunteered at our center in Greece multiple times. So cool he’s in Moldova now!

Two of our amazing international volunteers, Thomas from the UK and Davide from Italy, have been spending their summer volunteering at an LHI-sponsored community center in Basarabeasca, Moldova. We are excited to share Thomas and Davide’s travel journal, starting from day 1!

July 24th 2023, Basarabesca, Moldova

LHI volunteers – first week report

One week ago we arrived in Basarabeasca, a small town in the south-east of Moldova. It is here where we will be volunteering for the following five or six weeks. On Monday evening we reached the city and went directly to our accommodation: a former dormitory for railway workers and students located only 500 meters from the Ukrainian border. We are sharing the space with a few refugees from Ukraine. We learned that Basarabesca was—and partially still is—an important center for rail transport. 

The Phoenix Center—the local community center in which we are volunteering—is a precious resource for the city. It offers recreational activities, seminars, courses, free access to a gym and much more. We met the director of the center, Ms. Klara, the same evening we arrived in Basarabeasca. She was waiting for us on the side of the road not very far from her house. We stopped the car, and had our first meeting right on the spot, communicating in French, using some Russian, English, or Italian words when we could not understand each other. 

At the end of our first day, the mayor of Basarabesca came to the center just to meet us! Just like Klara, he was glad that we’d come to the Phoenix Center. He was enthusiastic and ready to help with anything we might need. 

Day 2: The children arrived around 9 am and were soon busy playing table tennis, using the computers in the computer room, making bracelets or necklaces, or practicing some of their favourite dances. Once everyone was assembled, we headed outside with Maxim, who runs the gym, for outdoor games and activities.

The summer campers at the Phoenix Center made sure that Davide and Thomas felt very welcomed and included!

The children happily welcomed us into their activities and were excited to show us what English they knew. We were both struck by the kindness of the children. It was important to them to make sure we were included and that we understood and followed the rules of the games. By the end of the second day we were both decorated in bracelets, necklaces and rings and had been given several drawings (which the children were careful to make sure were in our favourite colors). It was clear to us that the children were happy to have us there, and we were honored to have been so warmly welcomed.

Davide (right in black shorts) encourages the kids to PULL!

By Friday, we were feeling confident that we knew how the center worked, but we were soon to find that no two days were the same at the Phoenix Center! Klara had managed to secure a visit from trainers from Chisinau, Moldova’s capital city, to lead a seminar on financial responsibility for teenagers and young adults. We were invited to join, and so we gladly did, thinking that it would perhaps be an hour or so. How wrong we were! It turned out to be a whole day affair including many icebreaker games and a long role-playing game in which we assumed the role of family members and had to make decisions on different scenarios. With Davide playing the role of the breadwinning son in his team, and Thomas the disruptive Babushka in his, we did our best to steer our teams to victory. This also gave us time to chat and get to know some of the young people of the area.

Weeks at the Phoenix Center run from Tuesday to Saturday. The day got off to a slow start, but after lunch the children began arriving and we were soon back into our routines of table tennis and arts & crafts. As we left the center at the end of the day, we were both buzzing with inspiration and ideas for what we would like to put in place in the following four weeks here.

Be sure to check out Part II here.

Click here to learn more about our programs in Moldova.

How Stuff Works: Building Community Centers in Greece and Moldova

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Like these shoes we distributed to beneficiaries at the LHI Community Center in Serres, Greece, one size does not fit all when it comes to humanitarian work.

Refugee work does not lend itself to a one-size-fits-all solution. With 110 million refugees and internally displaced people around the world, aid organizations, both smaller groups like LHI and larger organizations like the UNHCR, must consider a wide range of factors when responding to the needs of refugees. For example: What is the political climate in the country hosting refugees? Are refugees allowed to attend school or work in the host country? Do refugees have access to traditional housing, or are they relegated to refugee camps? What governing body is responsible for managing refugee issues? What is the best way to work with these organizations?

Over the next few weeks, we will provide some insight into how LHI responds to different refugee situations. 

A TALE OF TWO REFUGEE COMMUNITY CENTERS

We founded the LHI Community Center in Greece in August, 2016. Our primary goal was to provide refugees a sense of community, a shared sense of belonging and understanding. Situated adjacent to two refugee camps in Serres, Greece, it is a place that brings people and cultures together through shared ownership of the space and its activities. 

At the LHI Community Center in Serres, Greece, community members and volunteers often share food and traditions from their home countries with each other as a way to connect and build community across cultures.

Earlier this year, we officially opened a similar program for Ukrainian refugees living in Moldova. The goals of both community centers are the same (providing healing psychosocial and material support to refugees), but their contexts are very different. 

Children enjoy an art project at the LHI Community Center in Balti, Moldova.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCES

Let’s start with Greece. Geographically, Greece is the gateway to Europe when coming from the East. It is a long and dangerous journey for refugees, many of whom cannot return home. However, once in Greece, asylum cases can take years to process, and the government provides little financial support. Refugees cannot work, and refugee camps can be crowded. Anti-refugee prejudice is present, and international aid organizations are not entirely welcome. 

Now, on to Moldova. Moldova shares a 700 mile border with Ukraine, so it is a natural destination for those fleeing Ukraine. Unlike in Greece, there are no refugee camps in Moldova; instead, Ukrainian refugees live within the local communities, occupying family homes, rented apartments, or designated shelters. The Moldovan government has generally been welcoming to refugees from Ukraine, allowing them to work and have a more secure legal status than in Greece. Ukrainian refugees still hope to return to their home country when it's safe enough to do so. 

It’s worth noting that Moldova has struggled with poverty for decades, and in some cases, Ukrainian refugees get more financial and material help than native Moldovans. While this has resulted in occasional tensions, the majority of Moldovans remain welcoming and hospitable to Ukrainians. 

SIMILAR GOALS, DIFFERENT CONTEXT

GREECE

The refugee camps in Serres, Greece, house people from various nationalities and who speak different languages such as Yazidis, Ukrainians, Syrians, and Afghanis. At the LHI Community Center, we strive to create a safe and welcoming environment where everyone can feel a sense of community, regardless of their origin. We organize activities where participants can share their cultures, traditions, and food with each other. We also encourage sports, women’s activities, children’s activities, play, fun, and music as a means of bringing people together.

People often enjoy making music together at the Arts and Recreation space at the LHI Community Center in Greece.

Because the political climate in Greece can be hostile towards refugees and aid organizations, we run the LHI Community Center independently from the government-appointed administration and refugee camps. We regularly consult with the refugee community to ensure our programs meet their needs and interests, especially if they do not have access to services in the host country. For instance, as many community members are scheduled to resettle in Germany, German language classes are in high demand.

MOLDOVA

At the LHI Community Center in Balti, both Ukrainians and local Moldovans come together as part of our mission to foster community and help those most in need.

While beneficiaries in Moldova do not live in refugee camps, we try to identify those who may feel isolated and lonely in the local community. We use a lot of social media and word of mouth to let beneficiaries know about our center.

Because Ukrainians living in Moldova do hope to return home someday, and because many Ukrainians are able to work in Moldova, there is not as much of a demand for language or skills building classes as there is in Greece. There is however a huge demand for fitness and creative arts classes, both of which lend healing and comfort to those who wait in limbo to return to Ukraine.

These community members enjoy a fitness class at the LHI Community Center in Moldova.

And so there you have it. Despite the differences between the refugee contexts in Greece and Moldova, LHI was able to take a good idea—a refugee community center—and customize it to meet the needs of the place and the people it benefits.

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post where we talk about how responding to one natural disaster that affected two different countries and required two very different responses.

The LHI Difference: Humanitarian Aid From Person to Person

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Edu, LHI’s Director of Field Operations in Moldova, distributes toys to Ukrainian refugee children.

Yesterday morning, I was busy getting the kids ready for school. As usual, I had one AirPod in so that I could catch Morning Edition while also fielding breakfast requests and packing snack bags. My ears perked up when I heard the intro to a story about how the Turkish city of Sanliurfa is using lessons learned from welcoming Syrian refugees to assist people displaced by the earthquakes.

As I listened, the words of an interviewee, Ali Altin, who runs a distribution center in Sanliurfa, caught my attention. He observed that Syrian war refugees and earthquake survivors share this similarity: “Families who have never wanted for anything before in their lives are suddenly in need of a single diaper, and you can sense they don’t know how to tell you what they need and are almost apologetic for asking.”

This statement brought me back to a voice memo Edu, LHI’s Director of Field Operations in Moldova, sent me a few weeks back about why he thinks it is important that he is there, on the ground, when aid is distributed. And, since Edu took a good deal of time to send me the voice memo, I’ll let him take the lead in telling you why LHI’s practice of having team members at humanitarian aid distributions as often as possible is so important.

Edu often opens boxes of aid with beneficiaries. This gives him an opportunity to talk with people and to better understand their situation and their needs.

Being present at distributions brings humanity and dignity to a moment that is quite delicate.

Edu told me, “I think that asking for humanitarian aid, asking for help is something that can be humiliating. It makes people feel vulnerable and nobody likes it. So that is the starting point. And I think if I am there, wearing LHI gear, representing the organization, it brings some humanity to this process, and makes the beneficiaries feel better because they know it's from human to human.”

Edu also shared that some NGOs unload boxes of aid and leave. He said that the effect of this is that: “they don’t even know refugees faces. This could be quite undignifying for them, for the people who receive the support, and that is unfortunately how it works usually. They just load a truck with stuff, send it to the village where there is need, unload it, and that is it. People don’t even know where these things come from, who donated, and probably they get a feeling that the donors don’t care much about them. 

When I take part in a distribution, people can say thank you to me. That brings a bit of dignity and humanity in the process- in this moment that is quite delicate.

Refugees remember more about LHI. There is a person who makes the moment more memorable. It makes it a nicer experience.”

Edu spent some time playing with Ukrainian children sheltering in the dorms at university in Chisinau, Moldova. Edu got the idea to set up a playroom when he saw the children playing in the narrow corridors during an aid distribution.

Meeting beneficiaries helps LHI to get to know them, to better understand their needs, and to help them get the aid and services they are not able to get anywhere else.

Edu told me that when he is present at distributions, “I get to know the real situation. I get to see where the refugees live and what are their needs. I get to talk to them. I get to listen to them. I could not have such a grasp on their lives if I were not there.”

Edu’s presence at one distribution led to one of LHI’s coolest projects in Moldova. He said: “When I distributed aid to a university [that shelters Ukrainian refugees in its dormitories], I saw the kids playing in the corridor and then I had the idea that maybe we could set up a playroom for these kids. That has been one of the most successful projects so far in Moldova, and that idea just sparked during a distribution.”

LHI founder and director Hayley Smith talks with a woman during a distribution of aid to earthquake survivors in Turkey.

LHI’s COO Walker echoed Edu’s sentiments recently in a staff meeting when he reflected on his recent visit to earthquake survivors in Turkey. He told us about a Syrian refugee he met who’d first lost three of her children in Syria because of the civil war, and had now lost six more children in the earthquake. She and other women and children were sleeping on the floor in a mosque. What they needed were mattresses so that they could get off of the cold, hard floor. Because of this conversation, LHI was able to provide the people sleeping in the mosque that small, but much needed, comfort.

LHI’s Walker, Jaron, and Hayley recently traveled through Turkey to personally distribute aid to earthquake survivors.

Walker also told us that he spent some time playing with the children who were sheltering at the mosque. He said, “There is not much for [earthquake survivors] to do.” Many people are not working because they’ve been displaced from their homes, or because their workplaces have been destroyed, or because supply chains have been greatly disrupted. Children are not in school because buildings are damaged or teachers have been killed or displaced. In light of this, Walker said, “It feels very valuable to play with the kids and engage them.”

LHI’s Ukraine country director Serhii (he’s the one with the sunglasses on his head) recently traveled to Kherson where he met with volunteers who serve their community and affected villages at great risk to themselves. Meeting people and forming partnerships is how LHI gets its work done.

The relationships and partnerships that pave the way for LHI to do its work are forged on the ground.

Serhii, our Ukraine country director, puts this best. He told me:

“A partnership isn't built by phone calls, emails, or agreements. It is forged on dusty roads and in destroyed villages. [Before joining LHI], I was doing massive projects with dozens of teammates and thousands of beneficiaries, and it was easy to lose the sense of human connection. My job isn't about metric tons or quantity; that's about connecting the dots and ultimately bringing people together. That's why I travel with our fantastic partners, whenever possible, to the most affected areas. We drive, unload aid and sometimes seek shelter together.

Now I can see the hard work of our partners, share the team spirit and remind myself about the very essence of humanitarianism. We build hope, empower people, and come together as a big family.”

And I think Serhii hits the nail on the head: the essence of humanitarianism is seeing the humanity in our beneficiaries and partners and working together to provide the things people need to maintain or rebuild their sense of dignity and self-sufficiency.

If you’d like to learn more about our team , our work, and how you can help, please visit our website!

On the Ground In Moldova: Finding Helpers in Basarabeasca

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director with Edu Furli, Director of Moldova Field Operations

The people of the small town of Basarabeasca, Moldova have opened their homes and their community center to over 700 Ukrainian refugees.

I didn’t know much about Moldova before joining the LHI team. Thanks to my now ten-year-old son’s fascination with geography a few years back, I knew it was a country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. Thanks to a nearby restaurant, I knew Moldovan cuisine is delectable. Now I know that Moldovans are some of the most amazing people in the world. Take, for example, this story from a tiny town in southern Moldova. It brought to mind a quote from Fred Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” 

Basarabeasca is a tiny town of around 7,000 people right on the border with Ukraine.

There are more than 700 Ukrainian refugees there. That is a ratio of 1 Ukrainian to every 10 native Basarabeascans. Basarabeasca has not received much financial help or humanitarian aid to help them support their new Ukrainian neighbors. Nonetheless, they have opened their doors wide to those in need. Most of the Ukrainian refugees are living with host families—that’s right, in the homes of ordinary townspeople.

Basarabeasca is not the only example of Moldovans helping their Ukrainian neighbors. Throughout Moldova, towns and organizations are pitching in. That is why LHI launched a small grants program. This program is based on the idea that local people and organizations in Moldova know what they need to assist refugees from Ukrainians. After all, Moldovans and Ukrainians enjoy a similar lifestyle, culture, and cuisine. However, Moldova is a resource-poor country, among the least wealthy in the region. Small grants from LHI can often make a big difference.

This is a map of where the recipients of the first and second round small grants are located. Since this map was created, LHI has awarded a third round of small grants to Moldovan organizations assisting Ukrainian refugees.

Edu and Oxana from the LHI Moldova team recently visited Basarabeasca, which received an LHI small grant. The town was so appreciative of the grant, which they used to provide warm clothing and food to Ukrainian people, that the mayor personally welcomed Edu and Oxana. They later visited what Edu described as “a truly beautiful, heart warming” community center where local people and refugees gather. They also quickly noticed that volunteers at the center were trying to do a lot with very little. They knew LHI could do more to help this community who was sharing so much of the little they had. They quickly worked with Irina from our partner in Moldova, Phoenix, to organize a delivery of material aid to Basarabeasca.

This is LHI doing what LHI does best: putting the human in humanitarian aid. Because we are small, and have teams on the ground in the places we work, we meet our beneficiaries and listen to them. Through our small grants program, we empower locals and help them meet needs quickly.

To learn more about our Ukraine emergency response efforts, including our Moldova small grants program, click here!

Lifting Hands In Ukraine and Moldova: What We've Done and What We Want To Do

What a year we’ve had! After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, we were amazed by the generosity of our supporters, old and new, as we did what we do best: quickly respond to humanitarian crises in real time. With your help, we have:

1. Made new friends and formed new partnerships

We met Liza and Anna, new friends from our partner I Am Not Alone. We’ve worked with I Am Not Alone to get food and clothing to the front lines and to bring surgeons from France to Ukraine to train Ukrainian doctors in trauma surgical techniques. Liza and Anna even traveled to the LHI Community Center in Serres, Greece to offer legal aid to Ukrainian refugees there!

We met Stas, the Ukrainian entrepreneur-turned-humanitarian who converted a space he’d planned to use for a business into the LHI Shelter in Ukraine, and the women and children who live there.

We spent an afternoon with Orthodox priest Father George and his father, Father Vasily, at St. George’s Church in the village of Storozhynets in Western Ukraine. These men converted the seminary building at St. George’s into a shelter for Ukrainians fleeing violence in eastern Ukraine just hours after Russia invaded. Father George also works with another partner, Blood for Romania, and a network of other Orthodox priests to get food and clothing to people still living on the front lines.

Traci, our co-Director of Utah Operations, and Vasily, from our partner Caritas Mostyska have become good friends as they’ve continued to work together to get shipments of aid from the LHI Aid Warehouse in Utah to Ukraine.

2. Distributed Aid to internally displaced ukrainians and ukrainian refugees in moldova

3. Awarded over 60 small grants to organizations on the ground in Moldova

One grant recipient, the Media Center of Transnistria, ran an education project for Roma children and mothers when they fled their homes in Ukraine.

The local library in the Moldovan village of Riscova used a small grant to start an embroidery club for Ukrainian refugees. One librarian noticed that an organization was attending to her new Ukrainian neighbors’ physical needs, but that no one was offering leisure activities. Over 40 Ukrainian people learned to embroider. The group even won 3rd prize in an embroidery contest!

A project in the village of Parcani helps the local community and Ukrainian refugees to come together to grow food, such as potatoes.

4. Played with and admired the resilience of so many Ukrainian children impacted by the war

Most kids think Edu, LHI’s Director of Field Operations in Moldova, is Santa Claus, except perhaps this little fellow. He was not happy that Edu wouldn’t give him the whole box of balls. Fortunately, he was sort of ok with one in the end!

Edu and Irina from our partner Phoenix opened a playroom for Ukrainian children sheltering at the Polytechnic University in Chisinau.

Babies love the LHI baby kits, many of which are assembled by our volunteers in Utah.

And of course, whenever Hayley is on the ground in Ukraine and Moldova, her playful nature lifts the spirits of all the children she meets!

Where are we going from here? With your help, we will be able to:

1. Help our partners in Ukraine and Moldova winterize shelters, hospitals, and orphanages

2. Provide warm clothing, blankets, and sleeping bags to Ukrainians vulnerable to power outages

3. Provide food and medicine to Ukrainians in need

How can you help? We are glad you asked! Click here to learn more!