A well-known activist, founder of the children's hospice "House with a lighthouse" Lida Moniava, from the very beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, began to help Ukrainian refugees who came to Moscow. Novye Izvestia has written more than once about the various nuances of this difficult activity, and now we are surprised to learn that refugees continue to live in unsuitable living conditions, despite the fact that so much time has passed since the start of the special operation. Here is what Moniava writes about this:
Everyone breaks down on something different, I was knocked out of balance by a conversation with refugees about an iron. Every day I look through all the applications from refugees who come to our fund. For each application, it is necessary to find a volunteer curator, but if I see the names of antiepileptic drugs in the needs, I take the application for myself. During my life with Kolya, I got a good idea of the topic of epileptic seizure therapy, and now I try to take all the “epileptics” for myself.
Last week, an application came in asking for Depakine. It's a cure for epilepsy. I called and asked why they need depakin? A family from Severodonetsk, 45 days in a basement, two children, an adult (18 years old) daughter and a 13-year-old boyfriend. They say that their acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances who tried to leave the basement "exploded". Therefore, they were afraid, they sat in the basement and waited. It was very hard in the basement, my mother constantly had a headache, then she began to constantly vomit. My son started having epileptic seizures. A 13-year-old guy had jaw cramps through sleep, his face, arms, and legs began to twitch. All this in a dirty basement during the bombing. The parents decided that it couldn't get any worse and under fire made an attempt to evacuate. They were lucky their car didn't explode.
And here they are in Moscow. I asked what they need now? Need food? Mom - no thanks, we manage the food is there. - Do you eat meat? - Not. -Vegetables? - Not. - Fruit? – Apples were bought at a discount in August. - Can you buy food? - Yes, no, we are not picky, we ate semolina on the water in the basement, maybe someone needs it more now? Okay, I say, what do you want? Mom - IRON. Wants to iron her husband's clothes at work. The husband works as a laborer. In the Russian Federation, he has already changed 2 jobs. Promised one salary, paid much less in the end. And at the current third new job, what salary is promised? Mom - I don’t know, they didn’t say, we’ll get the first salary, we’ll find out.
About the iron. In short, she irons her husband's clothes for work. Kettle. She says she's not good at it, but she's trying. Kettle, Carl. For a job that is still unknown, normal work or slave labor, for which they have not been paid normally 2 times in previous places.
And then came the request for stools. There are 2 stools in the house, and 4 people in the refugee family. They take turns eating. They ask if we can buy them 2 more stools for them to eat together?
A bunch of applications for a “warm blanket” from refugees who did without blankets in the summer, and now they began to freeze and catch a cold. The blanket costs 1,000 rubles. They are cold, sick, but they do not buy themselves a blanket for 1,000 rubles, because they do not have enough money. We ask, would you like another heater? They don’t answer thanks, he spends electricity, but how will we pay? Can we just have a warm blanket?
Mom asks for a desk for 2,000 rubles for her schoolboy son, because they don’t have a table in their apartment, and the child does his homework on the floor.
I wanted to write this text to announce - hooray, we have earned a fund to help refugees, now you can donate money to the account. But it will not work in any way (making a legally competent, transparent, correct fund is a long story. For a month now, we have been coordinating draft contracts with suppliers so that we can buy goods not for our warehouse, but immediately for refugees home. This is a waste of resources - to unload, to enter, sort, store, collect, write off, ship, deliver goods through our warehouse, when all this can be done immediately to families home.Concluding contracts with 1300 families (4 thousand people) is also a whole process.And a site where one could We are not yet ready to subscribe to donations with a couple of mouse clicks.
P. _ S. _
This is hopefully the last time I'm fundraising in a "volunteer" way. Write to WhatsApp -7 966 140-82-43 the amount you are willing to donate. I will sit down at night to sort out applications from refugees, all these irons, stools, warm blankets, but can we have not only pasta, but one piece of lard, etc., etc. I will assign you a refugee family that needs something for this amount. The family curator (a volunteer, we have 400 volunteer curators in the fund who help 1300 families) will contact you and tell you the details of how to pay. You can buy, give to the family personally. Order them for delivery. Transfer money to the card if there is no time to deal with orders.
We must somehow stretch until October 1, when the Refugee Assistance Fund will officially start working in full force. If you are ready to help refugees directly (or through a curator), write in whatsapp the amount you are willing to spend. One time or monthly? We will send you applications. 7 966 140-82-43 WhatsApp (Katya Chistyakova, fundraiser of the future fund for helping refugees "House with a lighthouse").