Inclusion Europe organised a call with Raisa Kravchenko and Yulia Klepets form the VGO Coalition (All-Ukrainian NGO Coalition for Persons with Intellectual Disability, vgo.coalition@gmail.com). They shared with us and our members their plea for help and described the situation of families who are unable to leave Ukraine during the Russian attack.
Listen to the appeal from VGO Coalition:
The Coalition shared an appeal from their members across Ukraine:
We are a network of 118 Ukrainian local non-governmental organizations for persons with intellectual disabilities representing about 14 thousand families from all the regions of Ukraine. We appreciate highly numerous letters of support and requests about our situation from our international friends. The war came to every Ukrainian home. The duties of providing for a family member with intellectual and behaviour disability became much harder now, all our time is dedicated to our beloved ones who survive special storm of turmoil not being able to comprehend the surrounding mess.
The families of Ukrainians with intellectual disabilities survive very difficult times.
In total, over 261 thousand Ukrainians are awarded official disability status due to a psychiatric diagnosis.
All day centres are closed, all community based services stopped, some cope with this with challenging behaviour, the mothers are exhausted, they often have attacks of their own (the mothers’) illness.
All in addition to bombing, Russian saboteurs’ groups, shortage of foodstuff, queues to the cash machines, pharmacies, lack of access to medical services etc.
We badly need your help.
So, we ask you for the following help:
- Drugs for epilepsy and some psychiatric diseases sold only according to prescription
- Sanitary and hygienic products (including for adults)
- Foodstuff of the long term use: canned food, cereals, canned oil, biscuits, tea, coffee, condensed milk, chocolate, etc
- For evacuation from assaults into the basements: sleeping bags, mattresses, first aid kits, power banks etc.
- Donations to grass root DPOs’ to purchase these products themselves, or to contract personal assistants for persons with intellectual disabilities
- Support to those leaving for a safer place: Help with transportation, Accessibility equipment at border checkpoints (wheelchairs, portable chairs)
This war is not against Ukraine solely, it is the war against our civilization! We would appreciate highly your efforts to call your countries to close our air to stop Russian missiles and bombers!
More information about the situation and how to help: War on Ukraine: Protect people with intellectual disabilities and families – Inclusion Europe (inclusion-europe.eu)
Presentation with photos of the situation of families caring for persons with disabilities: HELP Ukraine!
We are working on a functional solution to effectively support people with intellectual disabilities and families in Ukraine. Donate and support our work – Inclusion Europe (inclusion-europe.eu)
