Ms. Lyudmyla from the Donetsk region was walking with her 7-year-old daughter Zlata to the school bus when she ascertained that a full-scale war had begun. The very next moment, the mother received a phone call from her middle daughter who lived in Kharkiv, she was crying loudly, telling her mother about the shelling at 5 a.m.

For the Titarenko family, the onset of the war occurred in 2014 when Ms. Lyudmyla’s children lost their father when an enemy shell hit the building where he worked.

Now, in 2022, all the horrors of the war have not only returned but have intensified many times over.

The most terrifying were the air raids during which little Zlata cried constantly. At first, the family stayed at home to sleep, lying down in their clothes and with their documents so that they could quickly escape to the shelter in case of shelling. But later they moved to the basement completely. Fortunately, they were there when a shell exploded near their house one night. The shockwave destroyed the roof, smashed windows and doors, and covered the walls with cracks.

At that time, Ms. Olena and her 8-year-old son Vladyslav were hiding in a bomb shelter in Lysychansk, Luhansk Oblast. For a long time, the shelling had not stopped here, day or night. There was no electricity, gas, or water in the mother and son’s home.

These two families met regarding evacuating together by the same team of volunteers, and now both families are living in our modular houses under the Fort Home program. Here, we provide both families with ongoing humanitarian and medical support, as well as educational support for their children in our Community Center.

Currently, little Zlata is visiting a psychologist, but sometimes she still doesn’t sleep well. And Vladyslav often gets anxious and cries.

However, we hope that in peace and with human support, we will be able to bring smiles back to the faces of children and parents.