Generosity of Welsh people recognised in Ukraine report
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) today launches a major report on how Welsh donations have provided vital aid to people living in Ukraine.
The generous response of donors means that the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal has now raised £14.7 million in Wales and over £400 million at UK level.
The UK Government match funded £25 million in public donations and the Welsh Government donated £4 million to the appeal.
Since the conflict in Ukraine began almost a year ago, DEC charities have provided vital aid to millions of people in need, both inside Ukraine and in neighbouring countries.
This makes the DEC the biggest charity donor to the response inside Ukraine and for the regional refugee response, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service.
Aid delivered by the charities included projects to provide food to people in war-torn areas, delivering 75,000 life-saving trauma kits along with 34 incubators for premature babies.
Generators were also provided for people in bomb shelters and cash payments were arranged for refugees and people displaced from their homes within Ukraine to help support their needs.
Generous
Support and ‘digital learning centres’ for special schools in Poland were organised for refugee children and parents from Ukraine and mental health support helped people recover from their experiences of the conflict.
In the first six months of the response alone, DEC charities reached millions of people with aid, including providing 1.9 million people with access to clean water.
The majority of DEC funds spent in the first six months were used inside Ukraine itself (59%), with the rest being spent on the refugee response in Romania (17%), Poland (16%), Moldova (4%) and Hungary (2%) and on region-wide safeguarding and capacity building initiatives (2%).
DEC Cymru External Relations Manager Siân Stephen said: “The £14.7 million raised towards the appeal is testament to the generosity of the people of Wales.
“Among the loss and suffering, the stories of solidarity, kindness, courage and resilience captured in this report offer hope in a dark time.
“This report gives a comprehensive picture of how donations from the Welsh and UK public have played a vital role in supporting people affected by the conflict in Ukraine.
“Throughout each phase of the crisis, and each new challenge that’s arisen, DEC charities and their local partners have been there to help people get through this – and that wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the public, businesses, governments and other organisations that have made this appeal such a success.
“The crisis has been so huge, so widespread and so devastating that we wanted to take the time to detail how donations have helped different people at every stage of the year. And crucially, the level of funds raised mean that we can keep providing that support, as we know that this crisis is far from over with needs developing and changing all the time as the situation unfolds.
“I’d like to thank each and every person who has donated, fundraised, got their company or organisation involved. The response has been truly remarkable and we are so grateful for the support.”
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Wonderful generosity and solidarity with ukraine from people in Wales
What about other victims of war in Afghanistan,Iraq, Syria and Yemen
Er i think you’ll find the disasters and emergency committee has also raised considerable funds for the victims of war in those places you mention – but as a far right pro putin troll youre not really interested in that are you 😉
Quite right Leigh…Pro-Russian propagandists cannot make a reasonable argument so they resort to whataboutisms.
But they are Brown! You know what it’s like here in Wales, we won’t even put our own people first. Let alone those form those said countries.
Lets just ignore the fact that Ukraine is geographically closer than most other war torn countries, and that the invasion has caused the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war.
Yay, let’s have our own people suffer so we can help people we will never even meet. How are we a country still with this mindset? Self destruction, no one does it like us! Ukraine has a clear right to independence and sovereignty say these people, meanwhile totally happy for England to carry on with what they are doing to us. We will soon be a region of Greater England!
Most of this money is coming from voluntary donations, so I’m not sure why you’re saying its making our own people suffer.
The amounts from taxpayer funding, £4 million from the Welsh government and £25 million from the UK government, aren’t really much in the scheme of government finances. The Welsh government is rather more generous than the UK in proportion to its total revenue, but this seems more a comment on the UK government than the Welsh one.
It is comments like this that do nothing except damage the Welsh independence campaign. You can be in favour of independence and support Ukraine’s right to defend itself as well, they are not mutually exclusive. I am a nationalist, but I would rather remain part of the UK than live under Russian occupation!!