Ukraine Response: Liaison team deployed to Kharkiv region

A 2-person liaison team has deployed to the Kharkiv region today, to continue supporting the many people still affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The Responders will be providing specific help for some of REACT’s trusted partner organisations on the ground.

This team consists of volunteer REACT Responders David Harrington (Strategic Liaison Lead for Ukraine) and GP Matt Ladbrook. They will focus their work on three areas:

• Working with the Ukrainian Education Platform (UEP) and the UN to support the UEP in being formally accepted as an NGO. This will enable them to bid for international funding to support the brilliant work that they and others like them continue to do during the crisis.

• GP Matt Ladbrook is experienced in operating in austere conditions and will provide our partners at UEP with bespoke medical training. There will be an emphasis on dealing with immediate trauma care in a complex environment.

• The team will confirm and if possible, deliver aid to people in the de-occupied areas to the East of Kharkiv, with a view to helping them through another winter. The requirement includes portable gas cookers and power banks, a quantity of which we are working with UEP to procure.

REACT’s work in Ukraine began soon after the conflict began over 18 months ago and since then we have continued to work with local partners. Our response began by ensuring aid and relief supplies reached those most in need, organising collections and convoys across Europe. Supplies were taken to sorting warehouses in Eastern Poland and from there were delivered right into the heart of Ukraine.

Since then, we have helped organise the provision of essential food packs - each one providing a family of four with enough to eat for a week - and the distribution of hot meals in Dnipro and later in Kharkiv throughout the frozen Ukrainian winter.

Following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June this year, REACT supported the distribution of over 10,000 desperately needed hot meals through a partnership with local NGO Myrne Nebo. Often the volunteers had to deliver the food via boat. 

As our response in Ukraine develops, we will continue to work with known and trusted partners on the ground to meet the needs of the most vulnerable.