A change of direction

I went into the refugee centre at Stryiskyi Park to meet V again, a 76 year old ex-English teacher, who can't wait to come to England. She and her daughter only received their Ukrainian passports a couple of days ago, and we hoped to complete their visa applications as soon as possible so as to get them out of their damp, cold, crowded conditions at the earliest opportunity. But V was in hospital earlier this week with high blood pressure and heart problems. And now her daughter, who suffers with long COVID, is in hospital with pneumonia. I am sure that their environment is contributing to their health problems and wish they could be just spirited away to a room of their own in a nice, warm house.

In the meantime, there is no let-up in the flow of refugees coming to Lviv, daily, from areas on the frontline like Kharkiv and Mykolaiv that continue to face daily shelling, mostly of residential areas. And now there are likely to be many coming from the areas that Putin plans to annex after sham referenda.

We finally have access to a van that we will use, early next week, to take supplies from the warehouse in Lviv to an orphanage and other locations about a 1000 km drive away. Any donations raised will go towards paying for fuel, which will be approximately £200 for the round trip. The humanitarian aid provided will far outweigh the cost of the petrol, and also we might be able to bring refugees from that area to a place of safety.

Please see our donation sites below that we will try to include in each blog, as someone suggested.

1. PayPal. Open PayPal and, when asked for name of payee or email, enter trawden4ukraine@hotmail.com. 

2. Just Giving. Open Just Giving and enter trawden4ukraine@hotmail.com. If it isn't the first one that comes up, just scroll down.

3. The collection box in Trawden community shop.

Thank you.

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