Ukraine: Oleksyi’s story, evacuating elderly people from Donetsk

“Seversk was a cozy town in the Bakhmut district of the Donetsk region. Around 13 000 people lived in Severesk before the war, most of them were able to flee and left their homes, but a lot of the elderly remained. Aleksey took care of people, became a church pastor, and he found his destiny in this. Together with Alexei, 2 more families were evacuated, who are now caring for the elderly people in a hospice. I dedicated my life to serving people and God, I organized a Christian children’s camp, took care of elderly people with reduced mobility, built together with my like-minded people a house for families in need.

Now there is a war going on in our country, many people had to evacuate. They had to leave so quickly to save their lives. Since then, everything changed radically. Before the war, we had ambitious goals – we started to build a shelter for people who found themselves in difficult life situations. 14 families were waiting for the moment when they would be able to move into a new house, but the war started… That’s why we made the decision to evacuate. When our city of Seversk came under heavy fire, we decided to evacuate. I felt responsible for these people, I could not leave them. It was very difficult to move and evacuate our people, because many of them are paralyzed. My back still remembers these moments – Oleksi says smiling- But we managed to cope with it. And now we finally feel safe.

On April 6, 2022, we evacuated from Seversk to Zabolottsivsk in Lviv region. We lived day by day, we didn’t know what will happen next. Then administration of the Zabolotsy community allowed us to stay in a building that used to be a hospital. The most important thing is that here we are all together. We cannot make plans for the future, but we rejoice in today and are grateful for everything we still have.

Lately we are in great need of medicines, food, hygiene products and diapers. ACTED’s support was reflected in the morale, it brought hope and good mood. Now we know we can set goals for the future.

With the cash assistance we received we purchased the necessary food, hygiene products, diapers and diapers for people with limited mobility.

We are still alive and we can continue to help people, we understand that we are important, significant, this gives us an incentive to keep on going, to keep on helping each other. This is a difficult time for our country, but we will get through it with your support.