During the COVID-19 pandemic, UNHCR provided 228 bicycles and 35 electric tricycles to communities located nearby the contact line in eastern Ukraine to help medical and social workers reach vulnerable people more quickly.
Since the beginning of the armed conflict more than six years ago, around 2.7 million people have continued to live in settlements close to the contact line in eastern Ukraine. The infrastructure in these mainly rural areas is poor: many communities lack medical institutions, pharmacies, shops and schools; public transport does not run on a regular basis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these settlements, mostly inhabited by older persons, became even more isolated.
“When quarantine restrictions were introduced in the country to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, we saw a sharp increase of calls to our hotline”, recalls Yevhen Kaplin, the head of the humanitarian mission Proliska. “For example, a social worker from Travneve would call and say: I need to visit 10 older persons who live near me, but there is another elderly person whose house is in Gladosovo, six km away, and it takes half a day to only go back and forth. What should I do? – This is not an isolated case; in eastern Ukraine many frontline villages are far apart.”
Local communities turned to UNHCR and the Proliska humanitarian mission for support in purchasing bicycles, which have solved transportation issues for social and medical workers during the pandemic.
With funding from the European Union, UNHCR was able to distribute electric tricycles in the government-controlled areas and regular bicycles to social institutions on both sides of the ‘contact line’. This transport helps social workers, who are often the only people available to provide help in isolated localities, to reach more people and provide them home-based care, such as bringing food, pensions and medical assistance.
“In Luhansk, territorial centres are the main institutions providing constant social services to isolated elderly people, disabled persons and individuals with specific needs. Very often, social workers are overwhelmed with high case-loads and have to care for more than 12 people”, says Ivan Saleyeu, the Head of the UNHCR office in Luhansk.
In 2020, the UNHCR office in Luhansk provided social and medical workers of 10 territorial centres with 228 bicycles to help them deliver social services and increase their capacity to deliver prompt response to the needs of people under their care.
UNHCR and the Proliska humanitarian mission also purchased 35 electric tricycles for social workers in Donetsk oblast (Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Toretsk and Volnovakha districts) and Luhansk oblast (Novoaidar, Popasna and Stanytsia Luhanska districts) in the government-controlled area. The tricycles can travel at a maximum speed of 40 km/hour and are equipped with special baskets. This has significantly reduced the load on those who travel long distances while delivering food, drinking water, medicine and hygiene products to people with limited mobility.
Three social workers—Kateryna, Olena and Olga*—have shared with us how the new bicycles have helped them improve the delivery of services.
Kateryna is a social worker and head of the humanitarian centre in the village of Zhovanka, Donetsk region. Before her retirement, Kateryna was a local primary school teacher.
“In 2015, there were no public services, no food delivery and no public transport in our village. People find food. Together with other activists, we have established a humanitarian garage. Today people continue to turn to our humanitarian centre for help. We have here a first-aid post where a doctor comes twice a week, a consultation centre with internet access, a humanitarian aid centre and a church.
Zhovanka is very close to the combat zone, which poses many risks to the local population. Recently, an 80-year-old local resident was killed during a mortar attack.
During the shelling, people used to hide in basements, but they are now filled with knee-deep water. Lately, we have not been hiding at all. We got used to it. Three times the humanitarian centre was damaged by shelling: the glass windows flew out, the wall in the summer kitchen was destroyed. For the sixth year, hostilities continue but people stay and the majority of them are elderly persons. Where can they go when their pensions are so small, around 80 US dollars?
Elderly persons in Zhovanka constitute about 60% of the population. I personally take care of 20 people, all of them with low mobility. They almost never leave their houses. I help with everything I can: buying and delivering groceries, medicines and hygiene products from a nearby village. There is a shop in Zhovanka, but prices are too high for these people. I cannot tell you how much easier my work has become with the bicycle. Delivering heavy packages, but even just going around and checking on people, comforting them with simple human attention… it became so much easier. I also feel very much supported and encouraged myself.”
Kateryna (on the left) and her colleague Nataliia work at the humanitarian centre in the village of Zhovanka, Donetsk region.
Olena, social worker and head of the community centre in the villages of Travneve and Gladosovo, Donetsk region.
Travneve and Gladosovo are practically cut off from civilization, only accessible by a dirt road, which passes through mined fields and a pig farm. Access to these two settlements where more than 100 people live is restricted, primarily for security reasons. Volunteers fill the gap in delivering essential goods and services.
“I am retired but I have so much energy left. I just cannot stay home when an armed conflict is going on and people are suffering. Humanitarian organisations gave us the impetus to organise a community centre to support the elderly. Today, older villagers turn to the centre with any problems they have: need for bread, medicine or food, need to measure blood pressure, need for help in paying for utilities and much more. Once a week, on Tuesdays, a nurse and a family doctor come to the centre and give consultations here. The water in the wells is not drinkable, so humanitarian organisations also bring drinking water in plastic barrels that are available at the centre.
The people I help live far away from each other. As a result, I constantly had to prioritize, as I simply did not have time to help everybody. The journey from one place to another could take me three hours. In winter, when it snowed – and no one clears the snow here – the journey could take up to four hours each way. One day on the way home, I came under fire. I had to hide in the reeds until I calmed down. Now that I have been given a bicycle, I am able to go around, visit and find out what help is needed so much faster!”
Olena is a social worker and head of the community centre in the villages of Travneve and Gladosovo, Donetsk region.
Olga works in the Luhansk Centre for Social Services.
“Life has changed significantly because of the armed conflict. Many people left, but most of the staff of the Luhansk Centre for Social Services have remained in Luhansk, in the non-government controlled areas, and continue to serve people.
The Centre assists more than 2,000 people. The majority of them have special needs: people who are bedridden, confined to wheelchairs, disabled or isolated elders. Half of them live in villages nearby Luhansk, in areas severely destroyed by the conflict. This creates many obstacles in delivering assistance, especially during the pandemic.
With the donation of bicycles, our work is now easier and faster, which means we better support people in need. Even security issues have been partially resolved: social workers feel safer because they can deliver goods, medicine and food during the day and return home before dark.”
228 bicycles were provided to the social workers in Luhansk.
*All names have been changed.
This article was edited thanks to the support of an online volunteer Sarah Vallée. Find volunteering opportunities at https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en
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