Q and A With Turkish-Born LHI Board Member Leslie Schick

LHI Founder and Director Hayley Smith spent a half hour with this family who now live in a tent city in the middle of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, the epicenter of the earthquake. They lost their home and all of their belongings.

One of LHI’s board members, Leslie Schick, was born in Turkey and resides in Boston with her family. Last week, prior to our trip to Turkey, she shared her perspective on the devastating earthquake that has affected Turkey and Syria.

LHI: Can you describe how you’ve felt watching from afar as this tragic disaster has unfolded in your native country?

Leslie: It’s been hard to think of anything else or to concentrate on anything else. I’ve been obsessively following the news and social media, and talking to friends who are in Turkey. It’s a collective trauma and pain. The news cycle and people here [in the United States] have moved on, whereas it’s all feeling still very current. So that has been difficult to deal with. 

This man was happy to talk to the team from LHI, the first aid organization to come to his remote mountain village since the earthquake. His home was seriously damaged, and he now lives in a tent in his backyard with his family.

LHI: Conditions in Turkey were already pretty challenging even before the earthquakes, right?

Leslie: Yes, the economy has been steadily declining. The inflation rate is staggering, as is the rate of unemployment. And people are truly struggling to support themselves. In the case of many, they’re struggling just to put food on the table. This is also an area that houses a disproportionate number of Syrian refugees.

One of many destroyed homes the LHI team passed on our drive to Antakya. According to Reuters, “more than 160,000 buildings containing 520,000 apartments collapsed or were severely damaged in Turkey by the disaster, the worst in the country’s modern history.”

LHI: What challenges are Syrian and other refugees within the earthquake zone facing right now?

Leslie: Turkey hosts the largest number of registered refugees, or persons under protection, in the world. While that number was about 20,000, before 2011, it’s now in the 4 million range for Syrians, and between one and two million for other refugees, mostly from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. The most needed aid, for instance, tents, heaters, stoves, etc, is in very, very short supply, and Syrians, in general, are finding it much harder to source these things.

People whose homes had been destroyed by the earthquake talk to aid workers outside of their apartment buildings.

LHI: What are the most urgent needs right now?

Leslie: It’s hard to believe, but the most acute and urgent need now, two weeks on, remains basic shelter. I’m in a number of groups where everyone is requesting tents and none are to be found. And following the two new earthquakes today, Monday, February 20, this need has become even more acute. To quote a local mayor, he says, “Our citizens are demanding tents. No one can convince our citizens to re-enter their homes now. This issue has still not been resolved.” When there’s news of a supply of tents arriving, it’s always exhausted before most people can obtain one. Beyond that, sources of heat, such as wood or coal burning stoves, are needed. Mattresses, sleeping bags, food, clothes, and very importantly power banks or battery packs for phones, or other reliable ways for people to charge their phones, because phones remain the main and best way for people both to stay informed and to stay connected with their friends and relatives who have been dispersed.

 LHI: For those of us watching on the news and seeing the devastation and wanting to do something, what can we do to help?

Leslie: At the moment, the primary way to effectively help, I think, is by donating funds so that organizations on the ground can maximize their efforts. This is not currently a place for untrained volunteers or independent volunteers to think about going right now. Also the scale of devastation is such that only trained teams or teams connecting with organizations that are already on the ground can be effective. Also, Turkey is a country that produces clothing, food, and all necessities. Basic needs are locally available. So the main need is for funds to procure them. Tech needs, such as charging stations have to be fulfilled by specialized teams and are highly needed. Psychosocial support is needed and will in the future also be very much needed to help this population overcome their collective trauma and sense of loss.

Click here to learn more and support LHI’s relief efforts in Turkey.

Conversations In Ukraine

by Hayley Smith, LHI Founder and Director

The LHI team holds a meeting by candlelight at a cafe in Odessa.

LHI founder and director Hayley Smith visited Ukraine in December to visit our operating centers and assess the needs of everyday Ukrainians. Here, she shares some of the conversations she had when she was on the ground.

Odessa, southwestern Ukraine

Me: “I can’t hear you!”

Colleague: “What?”

Me: “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Colleague: “IT’S BECAUSE OF THE GENERATORS”

Me: “I KNOW!”

This is how conversations in Odessa, Ukraine go these days. With regular power outages, people have resorted to power generators. Loud power generators! Every business and every apartment complex is running a generator. Street lights aren’t hooked up to a generator, which is why we pass a few minor car crashes along on our way to a meeting in a local cafe.During that meeting, the city power came back on. The cafe staff turned off the generator as I was mid-sentence. I realized I’d been yelling over the generator. But about ten minutes later, everything went dark again and the  ‘ol generator roared to life once again.

A dedicated but exhausted surgical nurse in Kryvyi Rih.

Kryvyi Rih, eastern Ukraine

Doctor: “May I please ask you something?”

Me: “Of course!”

Doctor: “Please do not post any of the pictures of the hospital from the outside.”

Me: “Oh okay, no problem.”

Doctor: “It is because the hospital is a target, you see.”

Two of the maxillofacial surgeons at the hospital.

We had just toured the facial reconstruction surgical department at a hospital near the frontlines. We met and talked to two patients who’d recently had surgery. The first was a lady who’d been caught in crossfire and shot in the face from a distance. Because she lived in an occupied part of Ukraine, she couldn’t get proper help until her town was liberated 5 months later. Another man’s jaw was severely damaged by shrapnel. The surgeons did their best considering the frontlines were a couple miles away and casualties were flowing in every day. There was a time where all of the hospital staff just slept at the hospital. 

The kind man who shared his story with us.

Irpin, Ukraine (near Kyiv)

Me: “It was so nice to meet you.”

Local man: “My child, I survived the occupation, but will I survive the winter?”

Me: “Of course you will.”

Local man: “Are you sure?”

The team of two friends on the right survived the occupation. They showed us pictures of the damage to an apartment block that they are now repairing.

Occupying forces killed about 300 people in Irpin, most of whom were men. Not fighting men. Just civilians like the man whose hand I was grasping. He had the clearest blue eyes and, at the age of 65, somehow survived when so many others didn’t. After the liberation of Irpin in late March 2022, he and a close friend had taken on a pretty ambitious project of rebuilding a central apartment block that had sustained major damage. It helped him focus on the future rather than remembering the horrific things he witnessed. So, there we stood looking up at the building and all of the repairs, never letting go of each others' hands until I had to move on to the next stop on our humanitarian visit to Ukraine.

When LHI Was Just A Sparkle in Hayley Smith's Eye

by Hayley Smith, LHI Founder and Director

History is made as my family and friends help load the first container of LHI humanitarian aid!

“But nonprofits don’t pay very well!” Those are my mom’s [concerned] words when I told her I was starting Lifting Hands International. And she wasn’t wrong. I reassured her that it would be a small project on the side because, well, I was just one person, and I majored in English and minored in Arabic. No shred of business training in my entire existence. 

That mother/daughter exchange was around this time of year 7 years ago. I’d recently gotten back from a stint as a volunteer in Greece, and I was fired up about what I’d witnessed. My mind wouldn’t stop churning with flashbacks of refugees, soaking from being in the sea and shaking in the cold. I had to do something.

It is hard to believe that LHI’s first aid warehouse was my living room!

So, I filled out the required paperwork, paid the fees, and started a nonprofit. I had a year to find a board and write bylaws, so I put that off for a while. In the meantime, my goal? To fill one container of aid per year, and aid that refugees actually need, not what people assume they need. It wasn’t an ambitious business plan by any means, but one container of organized boxes of critical aid is certainly better than nothing. 

Well, we filled that container in two months, and I thought that was the biggest project LHI would ever do! But LHI just kept growing and growing and growing into the international org it is today! Thank you to our volunteers, supporters, donors, staff, and teams for helping to build Lifting Hands International over the last 7 years.

News from Ukraine: Medical Needs Challenge A Country At War

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Dr. Aragon Ellwanger assesses a Ukrainian civilian badly injured by shrapnel.

How do civilians seek medical care when their country is at war? This question drew me up short. Hospitals must treat those injured by war, in addition to people who require urgent and long-term care for run-of-the-mill illnesses and injuries. 

Battery powered incubators arrived from LHI to Ukrainian hospitals last month.

Babies

I had intense and unrelenting contractions when I was in labor with my son 10 years ago, and that was without power outages, supply shortages, and lack of heating that so many maternal wards experience in Ukraine. This is why LHI distributed battery-operated incubators to maternity hospitals and NICUs in Ukraine, with the help of Smart Aid. (Readers, remember that this is Brigid writing, not Hayley! Hayley does not have a secret child). 

Health care workers at a surgical clinic near the front lines recently gave our Ukraine country director, Serhii, a tour of their clinic.

ICUs

Serhii, our Ukraine country director, recently visited a frontline surgical clinic in eastern Ukraine. He spoke with Anna, Director of Surgery, who left her job in Kyiv to care for cancer and ICU patients whose treatments were on hold while war injuries were rushing in. With Anna’s guidance and Serhii’s expert fact-finding skills, LHI, in cooperation with our friends at Dead Lawyers Society (yup, it’s a play on the movie Dead Poets Society) funded essential laparoscopic surgical equipment to help Anna and other doctors meet ICU patient needs. 

Dr. Aragon Ellwanger considers how best to treat a civilian patient with a war-related injury.

Civilian war injuries

Face-altering shrapnel and bullet wounds are now commonplace injuries at frontline clinics. I recently talked with Britta Ellwanger from ForPEACE, who works day and night to help on the frontlines. Her brother Dr. Aragon Ellwanger, a United States Air Force trained oral maxillofacial surgeon with experience treating frontline trauma wounds, joined her in Ukraine to assess needs at a frontline hospital. 

He immediately noticed a patient, Volodymyr, whose jaw had been severely damaged by shrapnel. Even after surgery at the local hospital, his jaw had been sewn shut for three months, and he had lost 40 pounds. This is because, well, "how to repair bone shredded by shrapnel" or "how to reconstruct jaws shattered by bullets" are not typical courses in medical school. Another factor in the less-than-ideal surgical outcomes is that a lot of the hospital’s surgical equipment was either outdated or not working

Dr. Ellwanger performed a corrective surgery to undo the first surgery and then reconstruct Volodymyr's jaw. Now he can open his mouth again, talk, eat food, etc. Volodymyr was lucky, however. Patients with severe trauma injuries across Ukraine have to wait months for any sort of treatment. In some cases, family and friends will raise at least $80,000 for a medical evacuation to Western Europe or the USA to receive treatment, but that is a rare case.

Training surgeons

The best solution is to train Ukrainian surgeons in oral maxillofacial wounds and to encourage hospitals to upgrade their equipment. Dr. Ellwanger has sourced a portable medical kit that he can take to frontline hospitals to train their surgeons to treat injuries unique to wartime. 

LHI is partnering with forPeace to cover the cost of this surgical equipment. We are excited that this project centers around training Ukrainian doctors and building the capacity of the healthcare system in Ukraine. We also know that this project will offer hope to hundreds of Ukrainian patients who have suffered devastating injuries.

If you’d like to learn more about this mobile surgical training project, please click here

Beneficiary Spotlight: Refugees from the Americas

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Images from shelters on the southern border of the United States that LHI supports.

Refugees crossing the southern border of the United States has long been a prominent issue in the American media. It has gained more attention recently as the number of asylum seekers and refugees arriving in the United States has increased, and as officials grapple with repealing the Covid-era Title 42, which has allowed the U.S. government to quickly turn refugees back to prevent the spread of Covid 19.

While differences of opinion about immigration are real, and conversations about immigration vital, the facts remain: People are being forced to flee their homes. They come with very little. When they arrive, conditions for refugees on both sides of the border are harsh. Many of those hoping to enter the United States wait along the border in makeshift encampments with little access to food, water, and sanitation. Once refugees and asylum seekers arrive in the United States, border shelters and charitable organizations are able to offer some assistance, but the sheer number of arrivals puts a strain on their resources.

Why do refugees from countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela risk such danger and hardship? The answer can only be that conditions in their home countries are so bad that anything else seems better.

What is compelling people to leave their home countries? We could write extensive pieces on countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, and Nicaragua. And, in fact we did publish an entire blog post on the factors pushing people to leave Venezuela. But, to give you an overview of the major issues, we will confine ourselves to outlining the major issues and providing you with just a few specific examples.

Political Instability and Oppressive Regimes

Many people seeking asylum in the United States are fleeing oppressive governments. For example, since 2007, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has ruled the country with an increasingly authoritarian hand. Freedoms of individual people and the press have become more and more limited, and Ortega has even jailed his political opponents. 

As we detailed in an earlier blog post, Venezuela president Nicolas Maduro ensured his own re-election by barring opponents from running. Since then, Venezuelans report continued persecution of those who oppose Maduro, including protestors. 

The political situation is arguably worse in Haiti. The 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse created a power vacuum that has paved the way for gangs. 

Eduardo shows some of the scars that remain after he was attacked by local gang members with machetes for not agreeing to sell drugs through his family’s fruit stand in Honduras. Photo provided by Their Story is Our Story.

Gang Violence

In the absence of any strong central government in Haiti, around 200 gangs have established influence across Haiti, including controlling an estimated 60% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. These gangs have committed acts of physical and sexual violence. They have forced people out of their homes and blocked access to safe drinking water, food and health care. 

Gang violence is also endemic in places like El Salvador and Honduras. In 2019, in partnership with Their Story Is Our Story, we told you about Eduardo, who was attacked by gang members after he refused to sell drugs from his family’s fruit stand in Honduras. Fleeing often seems like the only option for people like Eduardo who are threatened, attacked, and even killed if they refuse to pay, join, or do the bidding of local gangs.

Economic Instability

Unsurprisingly, in places where governments are not stable, neither are economies. In Nicaragua and Venezuela, inflation, declining wages, and rampant unemployment have left people unable to support themselves and their families. Essentials like food, clothing, and medication are often in short supply.

An estimated 60% of Guatemalans live in poverty. This is partly due to a decade of “land grabs”. Small farmers in Guatemala have been driven off their land by more powerful people who want to develop their land into larger, industrial farms. Indigenous Mayan people living in the Guatemalan highlands have been particularly susceptible to these government-sanctioned “land grabs”. When targeted communities protest the seizure of their ancestral lands, leaders can be arrested or assassinated. 

Natural Disasters

Farmers in Guatemala have not only suffered from land grabs, but also from droughts, floods, hurricanes and cold snaps. Guatemala is not alone. According to this Washington Post article, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced 175 natural disasters between 2020 and 2022. These events have led to loss of life, damage to housing and infrastructure, crop damage and food shortages, and lack of access to clean water.

Pallets of aid on their way from the LHI Aid Warehouse in Utah to Team Brownsville in Texas.

How LHI Helps

LHI works in partnership with several shelters in places like Texas and Arizona to provide aid to refugees and asylum seekers. One partner, Team Brownsville, told us in December: “We are receiving up to 600 people every day and the need is so great…Our greatest need is for blankets,warm clothing and shoes. We quickly and gratefully gave out all the jackets, hoodies, winter kits, socks, underwear and shoes that you sent. We tried to hold back some for when it got even colder, but as the numbers grew, that became impossible.” Thanks to our donors and volunteers at the LHI Aid Warehouse in Utah, we were able to send more aid to Team Brownsville.

To learn more about LHI’s Border Aid program, click here.

News from Ukraine: An Apartment Complex in Dnipro Was Destroyed. LHI Was There.

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

This photo of an apartment complex that was hit by a Russian missile on Saturday, January 14 was taken by a partner on the ground who was there to distribute LHI aid to displaced residents.

On Monday morning, I opened my Slack messages to find that Serhii, LHI’s Ukraine country director, had sent video and pictures of an apartment complex in Dnipro that had been hit by a missile. I’ve always been a news junkie—something that now serves me well in my role as LHI communication director—so I’d been following Russia’s weekend attacks on Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. But seeing the video and photos that Serhii sent along hit me so much harder and brought me so much closer to the reality of life in Ukraine right now.

According to the Associated Press, at least 29 civilians died as a result of the attack, and over 70 people were wounded. As of Monday morning, over 40 people were still missing. Of course, those numbers are staggering, especially since each represents one human life. The number that really stood out to me, however, was the number of people who had lived in the apartment complex—1,700—who were now homeless in the bitter Ukrainian winter.

What shook me further was reading in the Washington Post that Dnipro had been a refuge for displaced people from Russian-occupied Mariupol as well as Donetsk and Luhansk, areas on the front lines. I don’t know if any of the people who lived in the apartment building were people who’d fled Mariupol, Donetsk, or Luhansk. I do know that those people who had relocated to Dnipro in search of safety are now likely doing an impossible calculus as they try to figure out what to do next.

LHI arrived quickly to the emergency response station near the apartment complex in Dnipro. These boxes contain warm clothing, baby items, and personal care items—all things displaced residents lost.

It really hasn’t been easy immersing myself in all things Ukraine. I can’t imagine what it is like for my colleagues who live in Ukraine and neighboring Moldova or who visit Ukraine periodically to assess the needs on the ground. What keeps me going is knowing this work matters. When I see images of boxes of aid with the Lifting Hands International label sitting just yards away from the apartment building that was bombed, I know that telling all of you about the work that Lifting Hands International does matters. I want you to know that because of you, our supporters and volunteers, and the partnerships we’ve worked so hard to establish on the ground in Ukraine, almost overnight we had sleeping bags, socks, personal hygiene items, diapers and other essentials ready to distribute to the people who had lost everything. This is no small thing. 

Thank you for continuing to read the stories we share with you and to care about not only Ukrainian people, but all people who could use a lifting hand.

To learn more about our emergency response in Ukraine, click here.

Oh What A Year!

LHI’s founder and director Hayley Smith distributed aid to Ukrainian refugees in Lviv in December.

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

What a year 2022 was for Lifting Hands International! Thanks to you, our supporters and volunteers, we were able to provide more humanitarian aid to refugees and internally displaced people than ever before.

Here are some of the highlights:

The LHI Community Center, Serres, Greece

The team of community and visiting volunteers at the LHI Community Center, affectionately known as “the Field”, in Serres, Greece.

Our amazing team of visiting and community volunteers expanded the educational offerings at the LHI Community Center to include more German and English language classes, photography and art classes, and, most recently, computer classes. The Arts and Recreation program also grew thanks to an enthusiastic community volunteer who leveled up the children’s football (soccer) program, a community-run tea station and open mic musical afternoon, and a volleyball program on a court community members resourcefully built themselves.

A young boy enjoys the new pergola at the Child-Friendly Space built by ONE.

With all the activity happening at the LHI Community Center, we needed more room! Thanks to our donors and volunteers, including carpenters from Office for the New Earth (ONE), we built two new pergolas to accommodate arts and recreation and child-friendly programming.

Jordan program

One of the five classrooms Lifting Hands International helped build for Syrian refugee children in Jordan.

Kids and “kids” were the focus of our efforts in Jordan this year. We were able to distribute a record 800 milk goats to Syrian refugee families living in Jordan. We were also able to build 5 modular classrooms that expanded educational opportunities for 240 Syrian refugee children.

utah program

A team of volunteers at the LHI Aid Warehouse loaded a container of aid bound for Ukraine.

The team at the LHI Aid Warehouse in Utah was beyond busy this year! Generous supporters donated countless quilts, blankets, and hygiene and baby kits. Volunteers packed 31 containers full of aid bound for 11 countries and 6 shipments of aid for 5 shelters along the southern border of the United States. And that’s not all! Teams set up 227 apartments for refugees resettled in Utah.

ukraine Emergency response

Thanks to the work of our team on the ground in Moldova, LHI was able to open a playroom for Ukrainian refugee children sheltering in the dormitories at the Polytechnic Institute in Chisinau.

We asked for your help in supporting Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people, and you really came through! As winter descended upon Ukraine, you helped us purchase 211 generators and 200 gas stoves. Thanks to you, we were able to distribute 1,733 pairs of long underwear and 2,389 sleeping bags.

Your generosity was felt beyond Ukraine by ordinary Moldovans and the Ukrainian refugees they have welcomed into their communities. Through our small grants program, Lifting Hands International was able to help towns and organizations provide not only basic needs, but also psycho-social support to Ukrainians who’ve had to flee their homes.

Thank you!

Together, we’ve done so much, but there is still so much left to do. We hope you will continue to join us as we work to provide humanitarian aid and support to people all over the world!

Beneficiary Spotlight: Rohingya Refugees

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

LHI Founder and Director Hayley Smith visited Rohingya refugees living in refugee camps in Bangladesh in 2017.

Before I started researching this blog post, I had no idea what an emotional experience it would be. I was shocked and saddened by simply reading the history of the Rohingya, a religious and ethnic minority from Rakhine State in the country of Myanmar (or Burma, the commonly accepted name of the country prior to 1989, and the name that some people within and outside of the country prefer to use). Those feelings were only compounded when I found this online exhibition from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that tells the story of the Rohingya through their own words, photos, and cell phone videos. 

A Quick History of Burma/Myanmar

Prior to joining the LHI team, I was a History and Social Studies teacher. That makes me prone to believe that to understand the present, you have to first understand the past. So, let me give you a quick history lesson. Like many countries in Southeast Asia, Burma was colonized in the 19th century. Although the Burmese fought to maintain their independence, they ultimately lost their autonomy to the British in 1885. As a British colony, Burma became a target of the Japanese during the Second World War. Battles raged in the country, causing mass destruction and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. Finally, a few years after the end of World War II, Burma declared its independence in 1948.

Initially, Burma operated as an independent republic, but in 1962, the military staged a coup d’etat. Burma, or Myanmar as it has been called since 1989, has been under direct or indirect military control since then. This is when trouble for the Rohingya began.

The Rohingya: From Belonging to Marginalized

The Rohingya assert that they are a people indigenous to Rakhine State in western Myanmar. In fact, the name “Rohingya” may mean “inhabitant of Rohang”, the early Muslim name for Rakhine State. And, in the early days of Burmese independence, the first Prime Minister, U Nu, recognized the Rohingya as Burmese nationals. Rohingya people held public office, served as judges, and were police officers.

That all began to change when the military took over Burma. At that time, all people living in Burma had identity cards. The Rohingya’s cards identified them as Burmese citizens. But, in the early 1970s, the military began confiscating the Rohingya’s identity cards. This left them with no proof of citizenship.

Then, in 1982, the government passed a new citizenship law. This law excluded the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities from citizenship. Soon, the government refused to even call the Rohingya by that name, first identifying them as “Islam” and then, insisting that they were immigrants from Bangladesh, calling them “Bengali”. 

Targeted Persecution

In 1991, the government launched a “Clean and Beautiful Nation” campaign. In reality, this was a campaign of violence against the Rohingya. The military killed and raped Rohingya people and destroyed their homes. 200,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. In 1992, many Rohingya returned home to Rakhine State, but were subjected to forced labor and physical abuse. In order to monitor and control the Rohingya population, Rohingya people had to obtain official permission to marry, and at times were limited to having only two children.

In June, and then again in October 2012, anti-Rohingya citizens as well as members of the military and police burned Rohingya homes and mosques and attacked Rohingya people. Survivors were driven into internment camps and forced to rely on humanitarian assistance for food and medical care.

Meanwhile, anti-Rohingya rhetoric intensified in newspapers and on social media. Rohingya people were called “fleas” and “thorns” and accused of trying to destroy Buddhism, the majority religion.

Then, on August 25, 2017, the government launched a planned attack against the Rohingya. More than 9,000 men, women and children were killed. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 80% of world-wide sexual violence in 2017 was attributed to the gang rape of Rohingya women. As the Rohingya people fled Rakhine State, they took cell phone video of their homes, property, and mosques being burned to the ground.

After years of persecution in Burma, or as it is now known, Myanmar, the Rohingya primarily live in the world’s biggest refugee camp in Bangladesh.

The World’s Largest Refugee Camp

An estimated 700,000 Rohingya fled their homes and sought refuge in Bangladesh. Because they were running for their lives, few managed to bring along any possessions. People traveled on foot, carrying children and the elderly, sometimes wading through chest-deep water. When they arrived in Bangladesh, they joined the 300,000 Rohingya that had fled previous waves of violence. Today, over a million Rohingya people live in temporary shelters with little access to clean water and sanitation in what has been called the world’s largest refugee camp.

Some Rohingya have stayed in Rakhine State in Myanmar. The community remains segregated from the rest of the population. Rohingya are prohibited from traveling, even to the next village, without permission. This limits their access to education, markets, and employment. 

Volunteers at the LHI Aid Warehouse in Utah preparing to send aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

How LHI Helps

The Rohingya people living in Bangladesh are stateless—they are not recognized as citizens of Myanmar or Bangladesh or any other country. This status, along with fear of persecution, means the Rohingya people cannot return to Myanmar. It also means that the Rohingya often cannot access education, medical care, or employment or provide for their families without the help of humanitarian organizations and aid.

Lifting Hands International provides some of that aid through our Beyond Borders program. This starts at our volunteer-powered humanitarian aid warehouse in Utah where we collect, sort, pack, and ship supplies to refugee families living in camps in Bangladesh and other areas around the world. 

If you’d like to find out more about how you can join us in helping Rohingya refugees, click here.

To find out about volunteering at our warehouse in Utah, click here.

News from Ukraine: The Power of Small NGOs

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Why can small NGOs like Lifting Hands International make a big difference in places like Ukraine? Because we can quickly go right to the source and ask people what they need.

You know the saying “bigger is better?” I don’t believe it, and neither do the authors of a recent op-ed titled “Ukraine’s Dunkirk Moment: Small NGOs Needed to Avert A Humanitarian Disaster.”

The authors, all founders or employees of small NGOs, validate what we’ve always known: large international aid organizations, while laudable in their intent, move slowly in response to urgent need because of the constraints of financial regulations and the lack of on-the-ground connections to people and networks who can get aid out quickly. Small NGOs like LHI, however, are able to quickly and efficiently communicate with contacts on the ground to assess need, leverage existing relationships, create new partnerships, and provide timely, targeted support.

This is Oxana, our amazing Moldova Country Director, chatting with LHI’s Founder and Director Hayley Smith as they assessed the needs of Ukrainian refugees and the Moldovan communities hosting them .

Or, as Oxana, our Moldova Country Director says of LHI’s small grants program, which benefits local groups providing real-time support to Ukranian refugees: “No one gives them resources so fast and in so easy a way!”

Don’t believe that it’s the little guys that are getting the job done? Then read this story:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is THE top organization in the world to help refugees. They do a lot of good, don’t get me wrong. But they recently contacted our operation center in Moldova to see if we could help some refugees they could not. 

A man battling cancer and his teenaged son had fled from Ukraine into Moldova. The UNHCR couldn’t help, they said, because they did not have the proper documentation. You see, the father had left his home in Transnistria in the 1990s when the region was fighting for autonomy from Moldova. He arrived in Ukraine, and like other Transnistrians, was allowed to stay indefinitely. He and his partner eventually welcomed their son in Ukraine. However, Ukraine does not have birthright citizenship, and since neither of his parents were Ukrainian, the boy also did not have Ukrainian citizenship. 

On paper, the UNHCR aid worker said, the man and his son did not qualify as Ukrainian refugees eligible for aid. Without intervention, this man would not get the medication he needed to treat his cancer and neither he nor his son would have food and winter clothing. The aid worker could appeal to the central authorities, but the appeal could take months to process. 

Instead, she called us. The man and his son received what they needed within days.

Still not convinced?

Vans like this one, which we operate with our partner Caritas Mostyska, take aid to people still living on the front lines of the war in Ukraine. Brave volunteers drive these vans and make sure essential supplies get to those who need them.

One of our drivers went knocking door to door in Prydniprovske, a village in the Dnipropetrovsk region (Eastern - Central part of Ukraine), to try and find people who needed help. An older woman answered the door, and started crying, “How did you know I was here?” She was amazed that we found her because she can’t leave the house. She was totally alone. Until one person with the flexibility to go door-to-door showed up.

LHI is a small organization. We have very little overhead, so most of the money we raise goes directly to benefit refugees and displaced people. We can move quickly in response to immediate and urgent needs. Your support helps us stay nimble!

To find out more about how you can support our work, click here.

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!

News from Ukraine: Newly Liberated Kherson Is Not So Live-able

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Where is the owner of this single shoe? Are they still somewhere in Kherson, trying to get by in a city that has been destroyed by the Russian invasion and occupation? Or did they leave to look for safety in western Ukraine or abroad?

Like much of the rest of the world, I celebrated at the news that Kherson had been liberated from Russian occupation. I perhaps felt a little more joyful and celebrated a little longer, because unlike much of the rest of the world, my days are filled with sorting through news from Ukraine—some from news outlets, but much from LHI’s teams on the ground. After reading and writing about the women and children living at the LHI Shelter in Lviv, tracking Father George’s efforts to get humanitarian aid to people still living on the front lines, and considering the substantial danger the drivers who transport that aid there put themselves in daily, getting some good news was a relief.

This relief was tempered somewhat by the thought that maybe people who are not immersed in news from Ukraine day in and day out might think that the liberation of Kherson meant the war was over and the people of Ukraine no longer needed aid. This is so far from the truth.

Vasily from our partner org Caritas Mostyska sent us three of these photos showing the devastation in Kherson. A quick Google search showed me that much of Kherson, including the main bridge into the city, lies in ruins.

While Kherson may be liberated, it is far from liveable. As Russian troops withdrew, they left behind landmines and destroyed infrastructure. And though the occupation is over, Russia continues to shell Kherson, knocking out power again and again as quickly as Ukrainians are able to restore it. As the cold weather intensifies, sometimes the only way to keep warm is to visit one of the warming stations that have been set up around the town square. Buildings, homes, and vehicles lie in ruins.

One bright point: cell phone service has been restored—sort of. One portable 4G cell phone power helps people make calls.

Volunteers from Lviv drove east to Kherson with aid such as food and personal care kits.

Stas, the Director of the LHI Shelter in Lviv, and a friend recently loaded two buses up with badly needed humanitarian aid from LHI and drove it to Kherson. They were met by people desperate to receive it. But, they were also met by people desperate to get out of Kherson to what they hoped would be better conditions in the west. Stas and his friend agreed to take them, aware that loss of power and heat is very much a threat away from the front line, but also aware that after surviving 9 months of brutal Russian occupation, even the harsh conditions in the west might be a relief.

LHI has 7 operating centers in Ukraine. We are ready to respond quickly to evolving needs. You can help us! Visit our Ukraine response page to learn more.

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!

Beneficiary Spotlight: The Afghan People

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

Children wait in line for LHI school packs to be distributed in Afghanistan.

If I’d been born in Afghanistan

I remember distinctly when I learned about the history of Afghanistan-in a hurry! It was late at night on September 11, 2001. I was a third year high school history teacher in Annapolis, MD. In the morning, I had to face my students and explain what had happened and what was likely to happen next. 

As I researched, I realized that if I had been born in Afghanistan, all I would have known my entire life was at best turbulent shifts in political power, and at worst, armed conflict. I learned that the government in charge of Afghanistan at that time, the Taliban, rose to power on promises of peace. That peace was at a price: the Taliban instituted a totalitarian and oppressive regime. And, on September 11, President George W. Bush stated that the United States believed the Taliban was harboring the leader of Al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and for the hijacked plane downed by passengers in Pennsylvania.

When I put myself in the place of an Afghan woman my age-I was 24 at the time-I felt great empathy for the Afghan people. I suppose that my empathy has only grown over the last 21 years. While perhaps my Afghan counterpart felt some hope in the two decades after 9/11 as the United States and other countries supported a shift to a democratic government, that hope was dashed when the United States completed its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.

The current humanitarian crisis

During the two decades of international intervention, the Taliban had never completely gone away. They were simply held at bay by an emerging democratic government and Afghan military force supported by US troops. But, the United States began a withdrawal of troops that culminated in President Joe Biden’s announcement that full withdrawal would be completed before September 11, 2021. Unfortunately, the Afghan military was not strong enough to stand on its own. On August 15, 2021, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country as the Taliban entered the capital, retaking the country and taking thousands of citizens in Kabul by surprise. Some Afghans feared repercussions for things as ordinary to us as attending school or university while female or finding work as an interpreter for the U.S. Army. Others, especially women, feared a return of the oppression and violence of the first Taliban regime. Day after day, desperate Afghans tried to escape. Land routes quickly became clogged, and ultimately, were blocked by the Taliban. The only route out of Kabul was the Hamid Karzai International Airport. Thousands of people flocked to the airport, only to be met by Taliban forces denying them entry. Even citizens of other nations and Afghans who had documentation that allowed them to board planes found it difficult to impossible to get through the airport gates. Tens of thousands of Afghans ultimately made it out. Thousands more who were eligible for evacuation were left behind when the final US military cargo plane took off from the Kabul airport two weeks later.

This infographic describes the steps Afghans wishing to enter the U.S. under the Special Immigrant Visa program must take. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, around 18,000 Afghan nationals who provided service to the U.S. government and their family members are waiting for their special visas to be approved. Meanwhile, they remain stuck in Afghanistan or as refugees in other countries. (Image credit: USCRI)

In the wake of the Kabul airlift operation, the US Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Allies Welcome, an effort to safely resettle vulnerable Afghans and those who worked with US troops in the country. The process involves rigorous screening and vetting prior to receiving humanitarian parole into the US. Individuals and their dependents who then receive Special Immigrant Visas are admitted as lawful permanent residents who can begin the resettlement process through the Afghan Placement and Assistance Program. 

How LHI Helps

When Afghan families are transitioned into residential housing, US Federal law requires refugee apartments to be fully furnished before families move in. However, unless the long list of housing items are donated, the cost of furniture and household supplies comes out of the family's already humble living stipend. That is why LHI has partnered with the International Rescue Committee to assist with housing setup for refugees being resettled in Utah through our Afghan Refugee Aid program. Carlissa, our co-director of Utah operations and Anne, our warehouse manager of local aid, coordinate donations of household items and lead teams of volunteers who set up apartments. Carlissa recently shared a story of a particularly memorable set up on our blog.

LHI Volunteers load a container of international aid

What of the Afghans left behind? It is estimated that 3.5 million Afghans are internally displaced due to years of war, violent conflicts, economic problems, and natural disasters. Most lack adequate food, water, shelter, health care, and find few opportunities to pursue employment and education. LHI's International Aid program ships and distributes containers of critical aid supplies to these families in Afghanistan.

How Cold Is Winter In Ukraine?

by Hayley Smith, LHI Founder and Director

Ukrainians stop for a hot meal on the border of Moldova and Ukraine. This tent is warmed by a generator, a resource desperately needed throughout Ukraine this winter.

“In my videos I try to explain and reveal to you the very essence of our culture, our language, traditions, rules, and even some interesting places in Ukraine which you won’t want to pass by on your next visit.”

I lifted the above quote from the YouTube profile of prolific Ukrainian vlogger Olga Reznikova. She’s made hundreds of fun and informative videos, all in English, about everything Ukraine. For example, some pre-war videos include tips for night club dress codes, the cost of living in Ukraine, and life hacks in the Kyiv airport. 

Olga demonstrates how deep the snow can get in this screenshot I captured from YouTube.

But the video that caught my eye is, “Real winter in Ukraine,” published 5 years ago, long before talk of a humanitarian crisis. In the video, we see Olga walking down the stairs of her family’s apartment complex, bundled up in a thick winter coat and wool hat. “I just want to show you the real winter, because it’s -17C. It’s crazy cold, and even for Ukrainians it is crazy cold. In Odessa region, Mykolaiv region, Kherson region, the national roads are closed just because of so much snow.”

Check out the ice crystals forming on Olga’s eyelashes and eyebrows!

Olga opens the door. The camera takes a second to focus from a dark corridor to a pure white blanket of snow outside. The cold is palpable. The snow is deep. The town is quiet. People can’t really go anywhere, though she films some cars trying to navigate the snowy roads. Ice quickly forms on her eyebrows and eyelashes.

Despite the cold, Olga is adorable and bubbly, and the video is fun and light. Yet I watch in half-humor and half-horror. I smile and sorrow at the same time. This delightful video unintentionally confirms my deep-seated fear that this winter will be a humanitarian crisis on a colossal scale.

“Everyone is worried because winter is coming. The most important thing is heating. We need it to live.” Natasha, Dnipro

“Russia will try to freeze us, starve us and terrorize us into submission.” Yuri, Kyiv

“This is a question of survival, simply survival.” Elena, Kyiv

I pulled these quotes from some of many current news articles about the coming winter. As Russia continues to attack the infrastructure that supplies heat, electricity, and water to homes, hospitals, shelters, and orphanages, we at LHI are committed to doing everything we can to counter that destruction with sources of warmth. With your support, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will make it through this winter alive. Thank you for standing with Ukraine! 

Olga has gone on to make incredible journalistic videos about the war in Ukraine. See her channel here.

I watched some videos produced by the Ukrainian government encouraging people to stay strong. One such video shows ways to stay warm: hot water bottles, warm clothes, and a cat. Yes, a cat. 

Winter Is Coming to Ukraine

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

On a recent rainy, gloomy morning, I sat swaddled in sweats and huddled under a blanket in my home office here in Waltham, Massachusetts, a city about 15 minutes west of Boston. As I wrapped my hands around a mug of hot tea, I silently cursed the city-wide power surge that had occurred over the weekend and fried our thermostats. Then I considered the fact that it was only October cold, and that soon Amazon would be delivering our replacement thermostats. It could be far worse-it could be January cold and the timing of the return of our home heat uncertain.

This winter, many Ukrainians will have it far worse. Winter in Ukraine runs from December to March, when temperatures can drop as low as -20℃ (-4℉). This winter, a key Russian strategy is to put pressure on Ukraine by attacking infrastructure that supplies heat, electricity and water to homes, hospitals, shelters, and orphanages.

Ukrainians are already dealing with the consequences of Russian attacks on power plants.

As of today:

• Russia has destroyed about 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, affecting 16 of the country’s 24 regions, or oblasts. If the same proportion of US states were impacted by attacks on our energy infrastructure, 33.5 states would be impacted.

• A recent spate of cruise missile and drone strikes hit Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities. In Kyiv 80% of the population of 3 million people were left without water until repairs could be made.

• As the Ukrainian government scrambles to stabilize energy grid and repair systems ahead of winter, Ukrainians experience regular but unpredictable rolling blackouts.

The loss of water and electricity is already inconvenient. Every time the power goes out, people lose access to the internet and can’t charge their phones. Parents of babies and small children prepare thermoses of hot water when it is available so that they will have some on hand to heat milk or food. But, as temperatures drop, and people are not able to consistently heat their homes, the situation will become deadly.

These boys who are snuggling under a blanket from an LHI aid distribution have been displaced from their homes by the war.

Lifting Hands International will continue to send aid such as thermal underwear, blankets, and sleeping bags to Ukraine.

To learn more or to donate, please visit our Ukraine response page.