As critical infrastructure facilities, residential buildings, schools, hospitals are increasingly affected by air strikes in Ukraine every week, more and more residents from Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Chernihiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions continue to evacuate to safer cities like Bukovyna. Local authorities predict a new wave of Internally Displaced Persons for the winter and appeal to international humanitarian organizations for help.
The crucial role of collective centers in Ukraine
Currently, 88 collective centers have been set up in Bukovyna, Chernivtsi oblast, accommodating 5258 Internally Displaced Persons in regional and municipal institutions and 5676 in private ones.
Ms. Raisa lives in one of the collective centers for internally displaced persons in Bukovyna, in the western part of Ukraine, near the border with Romania. She came here with her daughter and grandson, having evacuated from Mariupol in May this year. Their family is accommodated in one small room of the dormitory of the educational building, where a space is dedicated to accommodating internally displaced persons is located on a separate floor. The simple furnishing consists of three beds, a wardrobe and a table. But the most important piece of this new room is the brand-new intact window, installed with the assistance of ACTED.
“During air strikes, windows are the first to suffer”, recalls Mrs. Raisa. From peaceful times, before February, Mrs Daisa recalls memories, pieces of her grandson’s childhood.
Returning from kindergarten with my grandson, we liked to guess ours among the many windows of our high-rise building. Now there are no windows, no house...
Raisa V. seems to be reliving those moments, as she tries to describe the unique sound of glass shattering from the shockwave of explosions. “It is not necessarily the rocket fragments, but the glass fragments that cut into your body with force that can be dangerous,” warns Mrs. Raisa, as if this information was now etched in her mind forever. “We were taught by our neighbours not to close the window tightly, but when the rocket hit the house and pierced the wall, it no longer mattered whether the whole window was broken or not.”
With the assistance of ACTED, new windows and doors have been installed in 6 collective centers from Bukovyna, where more than 1500 people live.
“A good window that does not let in the cold, from which you can see the peaceful sky, gives a sense of security,” says Valeriy from Zaporizhzhia, who found refuge in Bukovyna. “From such a window you notice the autumn landscape, calm down, and faith in tomorrow comes. Thank you ACTED“.
Before the escalation of the conflict, it could have been considered an interior renovation, now that we are in wartime, it is merely a way to survive the difficult winter ahead. With disappointing forecasts of possible power cuts and lower heating temperatures in the premises, reliable windows that retain heat are an answer to the challenges of war.
In the framework of the project “Emergency response in Ukraine”, implemented by Alliance2015 partners, ACTED installed 143 windows and 16 door metal-plastic blocks in Chernivtsi Oblast in September-October this year.
