The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, which began in 2014, is still ongoing despite the Minsk Protocol. Live rounds are fired every day and the death toll is rising. However, this does not concern only the army and armed forces involved in the fighting. The war also affects the everyday lives of families and children living in the immediate vicinity of the front line who have nowhere to go. People from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are traumatised by first-hand experiences of the military conflict. However, they have no choice but to stay in the dangerous conditions.

Since the unrests began the Humanitarian Aid and Development Cooperation Centre has been regularly transporting hygiene and food aid packages to these areas. People in this area need to be helped because they are threatened by the ongoing war on a daily basis, the economy of the local cities, based on industrial production, is crippled, and people are mostly unemployed. The population in the area dropped to one third compared to 2013. Many residents suffer from industrial pollution-related health problems due to the thermal and coal power plant. Basic services often do not work in the towns, there is a lack of doctors and nurses, the infrastructure is disrupted, and there is also a huge problem with drinking water, which is virtually absent throughout the whole area. The state and local authorities in the affected municipalities are often represented by the CIMIC military administration.

Life near a combat zone is very frustrating. The locals often hear gunfire and never know when the fighting will return to the towns they live in. Because of this many people suffer from mental problems and are unable to live a normal life.

The idea to organise a St. Nicholas Present-Giving Event and thus bring happiness to children who are not as fortunate as we are and grow up in an environment of war came in 2017. “We decided to organise the St. Nicholas Present-Giving Event again in 2019 as the previous two years had been very successful, bringing a lot of children’s joy into such an inhospitable environment,” Veronika Mechová, the head of the Centre, explains for the Diocesan Caritas Ostrava-Opava.

During the last year in December 2019 we managed, thanks to the generosity of Czech donors, to give presents to all 85 children from the database we had published on our website in advance. “We were already carrying a beautiful 30 presents all ready and packed from the Czech Republic, while the rest we were able to, thanks to the funds raised, buy and pack in Transcarpathia, on the way further east,” Mechová describes the last Present-Giving Event, where the presents were delivered to children in Ukraine two days in advance, on 17^th December (editor’s note: St. Nicholas Day is celebrated on 19^th December here).

How you could take part in the 2019 St. Nicholas Present-Giving Even?

• By buying a specific gift for a specific child from our web pairs
• By sending a financial donation to a transparent account
• By contributing a certain amount through the darujme.cz portal