More than three months since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, fighting continues to intensify as humanitarian conditions deteriorate. The United Nations’ OCHA Ukraine: Humanitarian Report estimates that 6.6 million people have fled the country and 8 million are displaced internally. While the majority of the people who crossed borders to safety have remained in the neighboring countries, others have continued to other countries in Europe and beyond. The UN estimates that more than 24 million people — more than half of Ukraine’s population — will need humanitarian assistance in the coming months.

The policy in Ukraine that prevented most men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country has resulted in forced separation of families. Far from their homes in Ukraine and often from their husbands and extended families, many mothers with children face the difficult challenge of creating a safe space and a version of stability for their families. In addition to continuing to meet the immediate needs of arriving refugees including food, shelter, hygiene kits and medical supplies, our partners in the region support those fleeing the violence in Ukraine with assistance in psycho-social care, pastoral care, housing, job searches, language study, school admission, legal services, cash assistance and other key integration support for individuals and families. Our support is also reaching communities not eligible for state-sponsored services for refugees, including Roma people and third-country nationals fleeing the violence in Ukraine.

Partners: Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (ECACP), Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania (ECACR), Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia (ECACS), Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary, German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine (GELCU), and in collaboration with Lutheran World Federation (LWF), ACT Alliance, Church World Service (CWS), Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA) and Phiren Amenca.

Partner update: Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary (ELCH)

A Ukrainian-language school in the basement of the ELCH office in Budapest, Hungary, provides structure and learning opportunities for children who fled Ukraine with their families due to the war.

As the early-spring influx of refugees has slowed, the humanitarian needs have changed. In a recent interview on the ELCH website, Anna Gyöngés Kelemen, the head of the ELCH diaconal department, observed that “our tasks have changed to the extent that the focus is not on providing rapid assistance at border crossing points and nearby settlements, but on providing assistance to those who remain in Hungary temporarily or permanently in the medium and long term.”

One of the ways the church is assisting is through a temporary school for Ukrainian children, set up in the basement of the ELCH office in Budapest. Though not an accredited educational institution, the school provides structure for children, allows them to continue learning, and enables their caregivers to have time to work or seek employment. The volunteer teachers are themselves refugees from Ukraine as well. The school serves children in first through eighth grades and approximately 50 children attend each day.

ELCH congregations, as well as the national church, are also assisting refugees with longer-term integration needs such as financial support, counseling, housing and more.

Partner Update: Lutheran World Federation

As of the end of May, LWF has opened two of six planned enrollment centers for refugees in Poland. The two centers, in Gdansk and Wroclaw, will serve a combined 37,000 families. Families will be able to enroll in a multi-purpose cash assistance program as well as access services including counselling for children experiencing post-traumatic stress and referral services for victims of sexual and gender-based violence.

“I have mixed feelings about today,” said Allan Calma, LWF global humanitarian coordinator, at the opening in Gdansk on May 17. “I am happy that we can open this center today, but I am also thinking that we should not have an enrolment center in Gdansk. This war is not right, it is not right for women and children to flee their homes, to leave their husbands and fathers, and flee for safety.”

“This war has divided a lot of people,” he added. “But all I could see in the past weeks was people coming together and trying to be human.”

The additional centers will be based in Ostróda, Zgierz, Bielsko-Biała and Bytom Miechowice, and will support a total of 56,000 households or about 168,000 people.

Be a part of the response:

Pray
Please pray for people who have been impacted by the war in Ukraine. May God’s healing presence give them peace and hope in their time of need.

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Give
Thanks to generous donations, Lutheran Disaster Response is able to respond quickly and effectively to disasters around the globe. Your gifts to Lutheran Disaster Response (Eastern Europe Crisis Response) will be used in full (100%) to assist those impacted by the war in Ukraine.

To learn more about the situation and the ELCA’s response:

• Sign up to receive Lutheran Disaster Response alerts.
• Check the Lutheran Disaster Response blog.
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Greetings to All!

Last week the world was just hearing about Hurricane Sandy.  I was in Haiti visiting our companions and discussing work still underway from other large disasters from recent years. The rain was pouring from the time I touched down in the country early Tuesday until I left late Thursday.  Haiti typically gets stints of rain that last a few hours, but a few days?  In the context, a little bit of rain can go far and a lot of rain can destroy people’s livelihoods, health and well-being. 

FNGA, partner of the Lutheran World Federation, mobilizing their emergency team.

Upon my departure from Haiti, I began to hear stories of towns under water and people missing.  Now, four days after the storm has passed Haiti more accurate information on Sandy’s destruction is known.  Haiti has reported over 50 people dead and many more missing.  For Cuba that was more directly hit by the storm, Sandy is the second deadliest storm to hit the island nation in fifty years killing 11 people.  Elsewhere, Jamaica has confirmed one person dead and the Bahamas two. 

The ELCA has been gifted with relationships and networks of actors all around the world that can pull together in times of need.  As we work with our companions to respond to the needs of under-served families devastated by Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean, we are also in thought of our communities in the US that are bracing for the impact of the storm. 

I encourage you to find time in your day to give thought in prayer to those who have already experienced loss and for those that will in the days to come.  Please also participate in the response either through your giving of time, prayer or resources.  Tomorrow we will be issuing an appeal with ways to give and more information about the response of your church, the ELCA.

Peace,

Megan Bradfield, Director for International Disaster Response

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Gifts to ELCA Disaster Response allow the church to respond domestically and internationally in times of need. Donate now.

Poems of Hope from Kakuma, Rukiya Ibrahim, 19.

When The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) was founded in 1947, its first service program provided assistance to refugees in Europe. Today the LWF continues to work with and for refugees and displaced persons, providing service and care for 1.2 million of the world’s refugees and displaced persons in Africa and Asia. In these camps, people from many nations live side by side seeking refuge from conflict and natural disaster.

The theme of the United Nations World Refugee Day 2012 is “one refugee without hope is one too many.”

A young Ethiopian woman, Rukiya Ibrahim, who lives in the LWF-managed Kakuma refugee camp, in northwestern Kenya, puts it powerfully: “when we do have hope that tomorrow will come and that tomorrow will come with a new change within itself, a new place to build you up, then that gives you hope to carry on.”

The ELCA, a member of the LWF, works as part of this 145 Lutheran member church communion which represents a total of 70 million members. This means that 70 Lutherans together take care of one refugee in this world.  As a member of the the LWF, the ELCA is dedicated to our vocation to uphold the rights of the poor and oppressed and promote dignity through our continuing work with refugees through ELCA Disaster Response and ELCA World Hunger. Every person we serve has a history of struggle yet has hopes and dreams for the future.

On World Refugee Day, we are reminded of the suffering of too many people who are living as refugees and internally displaced persons in our world. But we are also reminded of the difference we can make by offering a basis of hope for the future through the efforts we participate in as a member of the Lutheran World Federation. 

As a meditation for the day, I want to leave us with a poem written by Rukiya:

Came as stranger
with lost hope
no home
and became your members

We found friends and family
a safe ground to stand
strength and a helping hand
a new life and a chapter to carry on

You made us see far
unlocked our potentials
with strength and hope
we stood firm

You took time and listened
came down and reached us
brought us to light
and exposed our hidden talents

We have dreams and visions
hopes and missions
to fulfil our live ambitions
and reach every hill top

Now we are up and strong
built on strong base
stand with every race
and move on same pace

Thank you for your continued commitment to serve and provide hope to those most in need.  ~ Megan Bradfield, Director for International Disaster Response, ELCA.

 Gifts to ELCA International Disaster Response allow the church to respond globally in times of need. Donate now.

actually on the ground functioning in Hualpen (the municipality was looted as were the clinics).

We are keeping things going by sending relief teams from Santiago (staff and volunteers) but that means

funding is needed and less people in Santiago where we also have an enormous amount of work to do. Carlos Rauda

who is here funded by the LWF to carry out an assessment will be hosted by EPES in Concepcion as he

works in the region. Food and health kits were distributed from our Center. We are

committed to responding with all the strength, organization, commitment, faith that we have.

We are working with Mercy Corps who approached us because of a former wonderful intern Matt Streng —

EPES is their local partner, to develop a post trauma program for children in Hualpen and other

areas of the region. Comfort for kids is a program they have done in China, Peru, Haiti, etc.

We are also working long, long hours and are faced with situations we have not

handled before.”

Please keep Karen and the EPES staff in your prayers.

My name is Megan Bradfield, and I serve as the associate director of international disaster response for the ELCA.  Welcome to the ELCA Disaster Response blog!

My colleagues and I will be using this blog as a way to share information with you, for now primarily about the unfolding relief efforts in Haiti continuing with on-going information on other disaster response topics from the US and around the world.

A family in the Haitian village of Dabonne stands in front of the temporary shelter they built following the destruction of their home in a January 12 earthquake. They used old lumber salvaged from the ruins of their previous house. Photo by Paul Jeffrey/ACT.

In the near future, you will be meet Louis Dorvilier here on the blog.  Louis is the director of international disaster response and a native Haitian.  He is currently using his expertise to serve his native Haitian community, working on a team from the Lutheran World Federation and Action by Churches Together (ACT) Alliance, which the ELCA is a member of.  Among other things, Louis is working to assess the situation in Haiti, define assets of LWF and other partners, and coordinate plans to restore daily life to those that have been affected by this tragedy.

Last Friday, we sent out an update on the situation in Haiti and how we are currently working there and in the US.  (Click here to see the full report.)  Here are a few highlights:

• 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12^th
• 6.1 magnitude aftershock on January 20^th
• Estimated 100,000 – 2000,000 dead
• Possible 1 million people homeless
• ELCA mobilizes $600,000 immediately for LWF, LWR and CWS
• Lutheran Services Florida Inc. receives $25,000 for emergency hardship grants
• More than $1.6 million confirmed giving received and processed

I invite you to subscribe to our blog (using the box on the right-hand side of the page), and join us to keep up-to-date on the work of the ELCA.

Keep the people of Haiti and caregivers responding to this disaster in your prayers!

God’s Peace, MB