OUR STORY
Helping Our Ukrainian Friends is a community of people across England, Poland and Ukraine dedicated to helping Ukraine win the war against Russia
It originated in friendships forged through football when four of the team met in Donetsk in 2012 when England played Ukraine in the Euros. It now unites a team working in Sheffield, Dronfield, Peterborough, Stamford, Surrey, Gliwice, Rivne, Odesa, Kharkiv and Kyiv.
Our first delivery of aid was in March 2022, taking medical supplies to the Kyiv Heart Institute as Russian invaders threatened to encircle Kyiv. Since then the UK team have made 12 humanitarian aid deliveries, while the Polish and Ukrainian team has taken these supplies on to front line communities.
So far the project has raised £250,000 and delivered over 50 tonnes of aid, plus 37 generators and thousands of lights, batteries, camping stoves, tourniquets and over 2,000 Christmas and Easter Gift Boxes for Ukrainian children. It has helped individual families and schools across Ukraine and a charity for people with hearing difficulties in Odesa. In December 2023 we also drove two ambulances out to Kyiv for delivery to military units.
We are also actively supporting Summer Camps in Poland providing respite and counselling to Ukrainian widows and their children. The UK team have helped with three camps so far, supporting them financially and with volunteers. Members of the Polish and Ukrainian team organise the camps and provide professional counselling services.Helping Our Ukrainian Friends (we affectionately refer to this as HOUF) operates by collecting and delivering donations from UK communities to Poland and to western Ukraine and Kyiv. These are then transferred to Polish and Ukrainian lorries. We also buy products in Poland and Ukraine for delivery to front line communities.
Helping Our Ukrainian Friend's (HOUF) programme for 2024 includes two major collection campaigns that will be delivered in June and December and two trips to Kyiv to purchase supplies in country. Key supplies we intend to deliver, as well as food, clothes and medicines, include 4x4 vehicles, camping stoves, tourniquets, chain saws and LED lights. We will also support another Summer Camp for war widows and their families in June 2024.
We urgently need to raise a further £20,000 to achieve these aims. And we need to make sure Ukraine’s fight to uphold democratic values and the security of Europe remains top of our national priorities.
Please help us raise awareness by sharing our website, social media pages, and events with your friends, family, and colleagues.