In autumn 1998 the residents of the municipality of Ust-Chorna and the adjacent mountain villages of the Tiachiv Raion in Transcarpathia experienced great anxiety. They suffered from desperate food shortages, were at risk of starvation and did not know how they would survive the winter, which tends to be very long in the mountains. The frosts are often around minus 20 degrees Celsius. Then came the devastating floods. The local people started to receive humanitarian aid, in which the Diocesan Caritas Ostrava-Opava also took part.

In spring, the villages which had not yet recovered from the first disaster found themselves under water again. This second flood was the largest in a hundred years. Communications were destroyed, important arteries connecting the area with its surroundings. Once again the Caritas became involved in humanitarian aid, dispatching trucks full of food, clothes, mattresses and blankets, and even bringing financial donations which were used to purchase food. On these humanitarian trips Ostrava’s coordinator for aid to Ukraine, Mr. Gejza Machala, met the Slovak missionary Peter Krenický, who then became a long-term guarantor of charity projects in Ukraine. “Ironically, the floods helped us, saving us from impending famine,” father Peter recalls.

The floods alerted the surrounding countries to the disastrous conditions in which the people in Transcarpathia lived. They brought humanitarian organisations and the much needed aid to the region. The government gave the people initial assistance, started paying them pensions and social benefits, which had been coming only sporadically before the disaster. The possibility of further assistance was sought over time.

A suitable option seemed to be introducing the project Child sponsorship programe (Adopce na dálku), which had already been successfully implemented in other countries by Caritas Czech Republic.

The idea began to take shape in early 2002. In March, employees of the Diocesan Caritas Ostrava-Opava, including Gejza Machala, Jarmila Sýkorová, Eva Chudejová, photographer Pavel Zuchnický and Roman-Catholic priest Roman Dlouhý, went on a week-long work trip to Ust-Chorna. The aim of the trip was to map out the situation in Transcarpathia and to make contact with people suitable for becoming involved in the Distant Adoption project. The first 50 children were chosen from the submontane municipalities of Nimetska Mokra, Ruska Mokra, Dubove, Viterna, Krasna and Pidchos.

Then, in 2003, the first organised “Trip for Adoptive Parents” too see the supported children was carried out. The number of children was growing and in February 2005 the Distant Adoption project was transferred from the Charity of St. Alexander under the Diocesan Caritas Ostrava-Opava.

In 2004, assistance also started to be given to the elderly through the project Dignified Life. In 2005 a Home of Peaceful Aging was established in the municipality of Ust-Chorna by rebuilding the former community centre. In 2007 the conversion of the old parish building in Tiachiv into a Pastoral Charity Centre was completed. It also contains a humanitarian aid warehouse, from which various material aid is provided to the socially needy.

Since 2009 we have been working more closely with the sisters of the originally Argentinian Congregation of the Incarnate Word in the project St. Nicholas Children’s Home – helping children in need in a children’s home in Ivano-Frankivsk.

Over the years, there have been a number of joint short-term assistance projects with various partners – such as helping with the provision of finances and equipment for the Youth Centre in Antalovci, helping to build a Mercy Town in Dubove, equipping the children’s centre in Tiachiv, organising summer English Camps for children in Ukraine, holding a training seminar for children camp leaders, enabling six married couples to attend marriage meetings in the Czech Republic, helping therapeutic communities for addicts, helping sick children, helping refugees, and other minor activities. Since the beginning of its operation the Centre has also been sending a number of volunteers to Ukraine every year to assist in various activities.

In 2014 the Centre started collaborating with Caritas Moldova. In the new country of operation it supports elderly citizens in need in the Moldovan variation of the Dignified Life project and in the Home Care Centre in the village of Grigorauca in the Sîngerei region.

Since 2014 the Centre has been reacting to events in the east part of Ukraine, where it organises projects such as Helping the Victims of the Conflict (Pomoc obětem konfliktu), Basic Needs Packages (Balíčky základní potřeby) and the St. Nicholas Present-Giving Event (Mikulášská nadílka).