Solidarités International (SI) dispatched its emergency response team on 28 February 2022 to evaluate humanitarian needs in Ukraine and Moldova. In 2022 and 2023, SI carried out emergency WASH, non-food items (NFI), shelter, multi-purpose cash assistance (MPCA), and food assistance response, with a primary focus on refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and conflict-affected populations across Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk. SI facilitated the distribution of meals, shelter kits, non-food items (NFI), and hygiene products in key transit areas, collective shelters, and train stations across Lviv, Cherkaska, Odeska, Mykolaiv, and Dnipro. Additionally, SI supported hard-to-reach areas near the Line of Contact (LOC) and controlled regions by providing non-perishable food kits and hygiene products, conducting small-scale WASH infrastructure repairs, supplying emergency water, delivering emergency shelter and NFI kits, performing light and medium shelter repairs (including sanitation), and carrying out winterization activities such as insulation work.
Since 2022, SI has enhanced its proximity to affected population, by being among the first INGOs to establish a permanent presence in Kharkiv as of September 2022 and by actively operating in Kherson as of November 2023 after concluding its emergency operations in Odessa in July 2023. SI’s strategic geographic and sectoral positioning as a frontliner organization allowed for a rapid WASH and SNFI response to the Nova Kakhovka dam breach in June 2023. SI currently maintains an active presence and operation in Eastern (Kharkiv, Dnipro, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia) and Southern Oblasts (Mykolaiv, Kherson). The organisation is reinforcing its presence in Tomakivska and Myrivska hromadas in Dnipro oblast, affected by the drought after the Nova Kakhovka crisis. In Kharkiv, SI focuses on de-occupied, rural areas of Kharkiv, Koupiansk, Izioum and Chuhuivi Raion. In Mykolaiv and Kherson, SI works in stable de-occupied areas, including settlements close to the riverbank, and in Kherson city through a local partner.
While the initial response was heavily focused on IDPs in urban centers, the protracted nature of the crisis, two years into the conflict, has shifted SI’s focus on residents of frontline, de-occupied and rural communities in active conflict areas, as well as newly on displaced individuals and returnees.
SI’s strategy in Ukraine revolves around two key axes:
- Responding to acute basic needs of vulnerable populations in conflict-affected areas through adaptative and integrated programming.
- Contributing to create conditions conducive to a dignified return in stable de-occupied rural areas, through recovery-oriented projects fostering individual resilience and state capacity to deliver basic services.
To achieve these objectives, SI has established multi-sector emergency and recovery responses in each of the intervention oblasts.
You can contact Solidarités International by email: info@solidarites.org