ReliefWeb

More than 1.8 million children have been forced to flee Ukraine in the first month of conflict. Children’s lives and their sense of safety are being uprooted by the conflict and sadly, at this point, there is no end in sight.

We launched our multi-country response by rapidly providing food and NFIs at border points. Since then, World Vision has intensively scaled up its operations across four countries (Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, and Georgia), caring for the most vulnerable refugees and internally displaced people. World Vision’s operational sites are many, but so too is our range of assistance, from providing food and hygiene items to creating safe places for children and their caregivers to supporting transit centres and hosting families. The crisis, like many, requires World Vision to tailor our programs to meet urgent needs in support of national and local systems already in place.

For example, Romania possesses strong government and civil society actors with child protection and other systems to support refugees. Our emergency response there seeks to strengthen these actors, building on our 30 years of experience. In Moldova, World Vision is starting our operations through partner organisations, large NGOs and faith-based organisations which are supporting affected Moldovan and Ukrainian families. In Georgia, where World Vision has a long-standing presence, the focus initially has been the provision of cash assistance and psychosocial support. Finally, inside Ukraine, we are supporting hospitals, providing food to internally displaced persons (IDP) centres and beginning cash distributions.

We are committed to serving 290,000 people affected by the conflict across the four countries from the inception of our response until the end of May. Yet while World Vision is rapidly responding to this tragic crisis, we painfully recognise this conflict will not conclude in two months. Therefore, our minds and hearts must start preparing for the call to expand and deepen our humanitarian operations in service of those who cannot yet return home.