Through devastation and fear, it’s also been a year of incredible resolve, resilience, and bravery by the people of Ukraine and surrounding countries who’ve welcomed their neighbors in need – and by you, CARE donors who’ve stepped up to protect the lives and futures of women and children.

By March 2, more than 500,000 Ukrainians had fled the country, some waiting in lines that stretched for miles at border crossings. CARE’s partners were already responding to urgent needs at the Slovak, Polish, and Romanian borders to Ukraine – meeting women and children with relief supplies, temporary shelter, and transportation.

Refugees crossing into Romania were greeted with flowers on March 8, International Women’s Day. CARE partners in Romania were providing support for the elderly, the disabled, and mothers and children crossing the border, as well as psychosocial support.

Dominik (age 4) finds safety at a reception center on the Polish border with his mother and stepsister (not pictured), who fled their home south of Kiev.

In collaboration with the Polish Center for International Aid, CARE has signed up over 140 Ukrainian teachers in schools in Warsaw to help Ukrainian children acclimate to Polish schools.

Daria is a wonderfully compassionate and smart Ukrainian teacher hired by CARE and our Polish partner PCPM to help Ukrainian children acclimate in Polish schools. When she is not teaching, she helps with translations and builds trust with other refugees like herself.

A humanitarian convoy of six Slovenian Red Cross trucks in partnership with CARE delivers 25,000 liters of water and 55 tons of food to Ukraine that was then sent out the same day to the cities of Kharkiv, Sumy, Kiev, Chernivtsi, and others in eastern Ukraine. The emergency food and water reached those who have had to leave their homes and are displaced in accommodation centers and temporary shelters in Ukraine.

In Ukrainian cities Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Kharkiv, CARE and our partner in Ukraine have supported hospitals and other medical facilities with medical equipment, such as anesthesia machines, ventilators, electric beds, and medicine. Brave doctors and nurses continue to serve, despite fear for their own lives. The number of injured civilians increases every day.

“We could not take much of our belongings because it was freezing in February, but we found some clothes in the humanitarian centers. Food is very important, of course, and hygiene items," says Olena, mother of 4, who fled Ukraine with her children when the war escalated. CARE and our partners in Ukraine provided food, water, and hygiene and medical packages for internally displaced families like Olena’s.

1,500 Ukrainian students starting school in Germany receive backpacks filled with school supplies from CARE, in partnership with the Deutsche Bank Foundation and the backpack company Satch.

In Ukraine, more than 200,000 women have received food, emergency cash, and other services through CARE and our partner.

After fleeing her home in Lviv in March, Victoria became head of an emergency shelter in Kyiv that has already had more than 2,000 people pass through – a third of them are children. She manages the bills, searches online for free supplies, inspects shelters, writes proposals for new funding of the shelter, coordinates the requests for long-term stays and helps the residents find schools, jobs, and accommodations. She is the heart and soul of the shelter, she knows every resident and every pet by name.

CARE and its partners support shelters in Ukraine with furniture and kitchen appliances, and provide food, water, and hygiene items to internally displaced people.

In a village in western Ukraine, CARE and local partner organization CFSSS, distribute food, medicine, and hygiene items to women and families. The food packages include products like instant noodles and soup, pasta, groats, canned vegetables, sugar, oil, and more.

Masha, 3, bravely fled with her family from their home in northeast Ukraine. Currently, they share a room in a shelter in western Ukraine that was built, renovated, and furnished with the support of CARE and our partner Vostock SOS. There is a playground out front where Masha plays.

CARE’s partner in Ukraine is cooking and providing hot meals to internally displaced families living in a shelter about 1.5 hours from Lviv. Today they are making Bortsch, a traditional Ukrainian soup.

Natalia’s family of four shares a small room in a shelter in Lviv supported by CARE. Here, families displaced by the war receive psychosocial support, shelter and furniture, and space for children to play. The morning they fled, Natalia packed only as much as she could in a hurry. She realized she never packed a hairbrush and her mother-in-law left her dentures. While they are resilient and making the most of the situation, they miss home and her son misses his cats and friends.

Mykola and Eduard are evacuation drivers for the humanitarian organization Vostok-SOS, a CARE partner. Every day, Mykola drives more than 300 kilometers to bring people to safety. In just over six months, he has evacuated more than 3,000 people.