How we help Ukraine

Sunflower Scotland SCIO is a specialised Ukraine charity. Our HQ is in Edinburgh, but we have staff in Ukraine’s frontline areas. Here is how we help Ukraine:

Frontline villages and towns

Life in towns and villages near the front line is unimaginably hard. Unfortunately, there are thousands who are stranded in these inhumane conditions. Typically they are vulnerable people: older, poor, or people with disabilities. They cannot afford to travel abroad or rent a flat in safer part of Ukraine.

Frontline villages and towns is a desperate post-apocalyptic zone. We have written a very detailed article with photographic evidence about frontline villages, so you can have a feel of what life there is.

People in these areas need food and basic household supplies. Getting to these villages is tough and dangerous. We personally visited them delivering aid. We put our lives on the line to know exactly how people live, and what kind of supplies they need. Now, we work with really brave and selfless Ukrainian volunteers, who continue this dangerous work despite the enormous risk.

De-occupied areas: freedom and poverty

When Ukrainian defence forces drive back the russian invaders, villages and towns are do-occupied. But life doesn’t instantly get any better.

After spending months in occupation, the water and electricity infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. are severely damaged. People’s homes have holes in the walls. There are no jobs. Bridges are blown up, roads are very unsafe because of landmines. The local shop owners bring food in their cars, but each journey is a risk and prices for basic items are very high. People live in extreme poverty.

Some de-occupied areas remain close to the front line, like in the Kherson or in Kharkiv regions. People suffer from artillery fire regularly. We often hear about new victims of bombing in Kherson, but the same horror continues in smaller towns which we never hear about.

Equally, Ukrainian settlements close to the russian border (like in the Kharkiv region) remain in constant danger. The enemy keeps shelling them from their territory.

For this reason, we support de-occupied areas as well. You can read our detailed reports about support to villages in Kharkiv Oblast, and in Kherson Oblast.

Children are the innocent victims of the war. Their childhood was taken from them. Some lost their parents, brothers and sisters, and all suffer from severe mental health problems. It is our moral duty to help children who remain in Ukraine.

Sunflower Scotland supports children who suffer more than others: orphans, disabled children, and those from poor families.

Orphans and fostering families

We support 186 orphan children in the Kharkiv region. They are looked after by 27 fostering families. New parents do selfless, fantastic work during the war. Each family adopts several children: sometimes as many as ten. Adopted kids have their past, and often it’s not nice. They need extra care and foster parents are under extreme pressure: both psychological and financial. This is where we try to help.

Some children have disabilities, and need special care. Such boys and girls cannot look after themselves, even when they are older. They need nappies every day, it’s a huge cost.

Every few months, we try to bring items they need, such as washing supplies, female hygiene products, or adult nappies for disabled kids (please see: a report about cleaning supplies and a report about hygiene products).

Each fostering family receives welfare benefits from the Ukraine government. But this hardly pays for bare minimum. Children grow and play, they always need new clothes and shoes. Washing and cleaning goes non-stop. That’s why our help is so important.

Help to children from poor families and internally displaced

Some families were poor before the war. Others lost their homes when their village and towns were obliterated. Such families were given very basic, temporary accommodation.

This problem is especially hard in those industrial or rural areas where the local economy has collapsed. Parents cannot get jobs, and struggle to buy even basic things for their children.

To support them, Sunflower Scotland sends food and cleaning supplies (see our report on the mission in Kryvyi Rih).

Christmas Concerts for children

For 2022 and 2023 Christmas holidays, we organised chocolate gifts and Christmas concerts. Our local volunteers in Ukraine invited children with disabilities and kids from poor families.

We do such concerts because we want children to have a few hours of joy, fun and happiness. For this short time, we want them to forget the war, and get their childhood back.

Every Christmas, Sunflower Scotland purchases Christmas gifts for children. After the performance each child gets a substantial bag of chocolates to take home. We hope that this memory will be a ray of light in the hard days, when the suffering continues.

Sunflower Scotland provides medical supplies to Ukrainian hospitals close to the war zone. Medics in Kharkiv, Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih treat people who suffered a lot, more than anyone else. Doctors and nurses themselves are under extreme stress. They continue working and saving lives during air raids and blackouts.

We bring medical equipment from the UK. Our support for hospitals includes:

• Providing wheelchairs, crutches, and walking aids
• Medical equipment: hoists, beds
• Providing adult nappies for patient care
• Sending unlicensed medicines and painkillers
• Supplying gowns and uniforms for nurses
• Products for newborn babies and new moms

Here is a list of hospitals which Sunflower Scotland supported:

Kharkiv Children’s Cancer Hospital No. 16.: delivered two electric hoists for patient transport, and two electric beds. 

Chuhuiv Town Hospital. Sunflower Scotland delivered many wheelchairs, zimmer walking aids, adult nappies, and other supplies to this hospital.

Chuhuiv Maternity Hospital. In August and November 2022 Sunflower Scotland delivered supplies for new mums and babies.

Kharkiv Regional Trauma Hospital in Saltyvka. In February 2023, we delivered orthopaedic supplies – titanium and magnesium screws and surgical tools – to the Children’s trauma department.

In November 2023, Sunflower Scotland returned to the Kharkiv Regional Trauma Hospital. This time we delivered wheelchairs, medical supplies and gowns to doctors – please read our full report.

Sunflower Scotland believes that Ukrainian men should not die without medical help. We believe that they should have means of evacuation, to take someone who has been wounded to safety. That they should have proper bandages to stop the bleeding. That is why we send ambulances, jeeps and medical supplies. We know first-hand that reserve units (TRO) are often not well equipped, and that they rely on volunteers’ help.

Sunflower Scotland provides aid only for saving lives. Examples of our aid include:

• High-quality, specialist medical supplies to front line medics
• Ambulances and vehicles for evacuation of the wounded
• Repair of ambulances
• Helping to buy a refrigeration van to transport bodies (“cargo 200”)

Here’s a few examples of projects which Sunflower Scotland realised recently:

In May 2023, we delivered an ambulance to front line medics of Ukraine’s 151st TRO Fire Support Battalion. They suffered very hard casualties in Bakhmut. The vehicle was equipped with a resuscitation machine and a stretcher bed. It was packed with 79 kg (15 boxes) of high-quality medical supplies: israeli bandages, wound dressings, breathing masks etc., as well as thousands of men’s socks.

In November 2023, Sunflower Scotland supplied two jeeps. Because of the winter rains, frontline roads east of Kharkiv and in Donbas have become unusable. The only way to evacuate someone is in the back of an off-road vehicle.

Sunflower Scotland provided hundreds of occlusive chest dressings and Fenton Israeli bandages to medics in the Donbas and Kharkiv regions. These high-quality supplies are used by trained medics. They are purchased from specialist distributors in the UK.

During 2023, Sunflower Scotland helped Ukraine’s defenders to repair four ambulances. Because of heavy-duty use, they broke down and weren’t helping. We provided the necessary funding. The guys quickly repaired the ambulances and put them back to work, so they could save lives again.

Conclusion

Sunflower Scotland helps those in Ukraine who find themselves in the most difficult conditions. We know that our help is very limited. We need to prioritise it for those who are most desperate.

That’s why we help front line villages, de-occupied areas, orphans, children with disabilities. We also help to save lives on the front line with high-quality medical supplies and evacuation vehicles.

If you agree with out strategy, please support us and donate. We can only work thanks to people like you.