Help ends when the most difficult

People are tired of the war and donate less to the victims. Bingerbread Anastasia Chukovskaya - that now help is needed even more

Exactly four months ago, February 24, Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began a war that was not going to end. During this time, millions of people lost their loved ones, houses, property, were forced to leave their hometown for an indefinite period - and so far they cannot return. After the start of the invasion, dozens of charity initiatives appeared that help Ukrainian refugees - however, if at first they easily attracted attention and donations, now that the war was routine, it is much more difficult for them to find money and volunteers. At the request of the “cold” Anastasia Chukovskaya, coordinating assistance to Ukrainians in Hungary (for example, grocery certificates , free classes for Ukrainian children and much more ), tells how the information background has changed - and why help is even more necessary than before.

The repost in my Facebook about a children's camp for Ukrainian children, which we help to do, gathered 52 likes at the end of June. The post about the auction of Ukrainian artists - 85 likes. A post about a product assistance program - 137 likes. Fasting about all our assistance projects - 250.

A month ago, a post about the purchase of humanitarian aid gained 311 reactions. In early May, a post about homeless refugees - 426 likes, in April a post about the problems of children torn from their education system - 435 likes. At the end of March, I had another story on the page about how we set up people - 601 likes. On March 20, a post about those refugees who can not stand to grit without a shelter - 1600 reactions and 466 shafts. I can no longer wash further. Interest in the topic fell, views too. The reasons can be any. Maybe I am not writing, the photos are involuntary, VPN laziness to turn on - and just got out of how much you can read it.

In the Hungarian media, Ukraine is no longer a number one topic, it is not on the first screen. It was possible not to check - at the points of issuing humanitarian aid everything is visible. They scream in social networks every day: bring shampoos! Please, you need gaskets! Bring children's sandals! We need vegetables and fruits! There are few reactions to these calls - people actively participated in March and April, and now someone has parted. The volunteers are less and less, they are tired, burned out, quarreled, exhausted their social capital (my, apparently, case). Schools closed, and parental communities also played an important role. Only refugees have not gone anywhere.

I don’t know if there are still people who think that Ukrainians in Europe are on the holidays? This is wrong. At the beginning of the war, I saw the journalist Victoria Ivleva York, and she said that refugee is probably the worst thing that could happen to a person in his life. I have that phrase in my head all the time.

Everything that happens to me seems to me a lottery. Someone is lucky: people will settle, take care of them, about their cats, dogs, will help with work. Others will fall into the state system that is not interested in them and their needs. The state does not care that someone needs diapers and baby food, that someone cannot leave children in the summer in order to go to work, because the kindergartens and schools are closed, that the work at local factories is difficult, and they do not settle in factory dormers if there are children in the family. The whole story with refugees in Hungary consists of many nuances - and there is nothing good in these nuances.

I was recently asked: why sacrifice now if the EU constantly allocates money to help refugees? If large organizations collect millions? I also have a question - where is this money going? When they arrive, will this affect the lives of specific people whom I meet every day? We do not see this money in Hungary. No major organization gives in the right amount of elementary food or hygiene products, no toys, no books, no underwear - nothing of what is needed. It does not provide a group of assistance in the construction of schools, does not feed hot dinners, does not help rent an apartment, does not make cash payments, does not check whether everything is in order in dormitories (not always) if there are cases of operation (eat), does the administration take humanitarian assistance (take it away), does it not look like all this to the prison (it happens). I read that Dmitry Muratov donated the money proceeds from the sale of the Nobel medal in Unicef, and remembered meetings with them. The result is one of the Ukrainian pop-up-schools in Budapest received a printer and a computer from them. Wow! This is the custom! They can’t help anything else. At the station with us there were no food, people did not settle, what they did in recent months - I do not know. (It's only about Hungary, in other countries I did not follow their activities.)

I have so hysterically draw this gloomy picture that it might seem that we have nothing at all. This is wrong. There are volunteers-ordinary people, unprofessional philanthropists who process messages on Facebook groups and try to raise their communities to their ears. There are small Hungarian NPOs who pull on themselves what can be pulled. But they set very small goals. For example, to arrange only 30 children to school. Or help a hundred people with money. Or resettle 200 people. The Budapest circus settled and employed a hundred people. Musicians are trying to help Ukrainian musicians. Some schools and organizations give their premises for classes that Ukrainian teachers organize. If there is something supporting in these dark times-this is such an interaction: outside politics, outside the bureaucracy.

Here it is worth saying about inconsistencies with numbers. About one and a half million people arrived in Hungary from Ukraine for all this time. Only 25 thousand were fed to temporary protection status. These are all the numbers that we know. And these figures do not reflect what is happening here. You can get to Hungary not only across the border with Ukraine, but also through other European countries: there are no borders, and people flow from the country to the country in search of a place. On the other hand, many refugees drove to us and went on. Some people are waiting for visas to the UK and Canada (a separate problem - tickets; people save on everything and try to find one -time part -time jobs while waiting; neither the UK nor Canada provides housing in Hungary with a visa). Ukrainians who have biometric passports may not be submitted for temporary protection within 90 days (for many they will soon expire). Some were not filed for defense, because they thought that it was about to end and it would be possible to return. Some are not served, because they simply do not know what to do. No organization knows how many children we have and what ages they are. But the numbers that I know for sure. One local foundation announced that only 30,000 forints (approximately 75 euros) to refugees from Ukraine will pay only 30,000 forints. But only to those who are in Budapest - after all, in order to arrange it, you have to go to their office. More than 3,000 people instantly signed up to them. And they had only 200 opportunities.

Stupidly, that help ends when the most difficult begins. It’s stupid that we did not become millionaires and cannot close some elementary things with our own money. It’s stupid that people who do not have many opportunities help, but they do everything in their own way. Stupidly, everywhere is politics.

I recently summed up the results of the first hundred days of help and saw that more than 500 people donated money to different our projects. I smiled at my table and thought that it was amazing. With this money, we settled several dozen people a day in different apartments and hotels, bought people tickets for airplanes, bought food, medicines, paid fees to Ukrainian artists who painted the Ukrainian school, helped addressed money, began to send out grocery certificates, and we bother with products for hostels. All this was done with the help of people from all over the world with which I am not even familiar.

Now there are fewer donations. Maybe I'm not writing not interesting, maybe it just got sick. But there are more and more messages with requests for help. I received somewhat while I wrote this text. Here they are.

"Dita in us Bagato 22, DIVCHATA I CLOPTSI Z 7 to 17 ROKIV."

“Mi living in a sexterswerian in Gurtozhitka 41 people of them 20 of them, they are VIKOM VID 5 to 17 ROKIV.”

“Hello. We live in Hungary, we are looking for hum. We need humanitarian aid in the form of clothes, dishes and food. We live in a hostel where there are a lot of little children, all from Kyiv Odessa Kharkov and no one is engaged in us ”

“Naygolovnish: Liki Pershi Nechydosti, ethnies of books on Ukrainian Movі, so yak all school, speech of special Gigiyny:

Devil Papir 12 pcs
Right powder 20kg
Skhdenni gaskets 6
Gel for the soul 15pcs
Mocepmons for the soul 22pcs
Hair balm 3-4pcs
Shampoo 15pcs
Bumps for mitte dishes 8pcs
Mitty sponges 2-3Up dishes
Domestos 7-8 pcs
Deodorant Cholovichi 8, Zhinochi 22
TSUKOR 14 pcs
Chorni tea 15 pcs
Coffee of Roschinniy Skilki is possible. "

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office.