January 26, 2016
Ukraine
In June 2015 the Caritas CR discussed with the Association of Private Agriculture CR the possibility of organizing a public collection for Ukraine. In the beginning of July, the collection was publicly announced in the magazine Selská Revue and it was held from 31 August to 25 September 2015. There were nine collection points in nine regions all over the Czech Republic, namely in the regions of Plzen, Litoměřice, Český Krumlov, Prague, Benešov, Žďár nad Sázavou, Rychnov nad Kněžnou, Kroměříž a Tábor. The collections were transferred to Ukraine in the course of the first week in November.
The idea to establish a collections program arose in response to the change of the Ukrainian government, which caused the armed conflict entailing an economic decline, devaluation of currency and deepening poverty. Moreover, the country is faced with a massive wave of millions of internal refugees. Due to the ongoing conflict, people in rural areas produce their own food, and thus they are fully dependent on their home production. The situation is, however, worsened by the lack of appropriate equipment.
All objects obtained in the collection were transferred to 30 boys from a non-state children’s home, Miles Jesu, in the village of Bortnyky (in the Lviv Oblast). Here, the children are taught to run their own farms and at the same time they produce enough food for living and selling. These children’s home received a power station, a saw, six shovels, two brooms, three boxes of fertilizers, five packages of a special cleanser, two drills, two rakes and two axes.
Another part of the collection was transferred to a social farm in the town of Tyachiv and to poor people from the region. Situated in the Zakarpattia Oblast, this area is home to many socially disadvantaged and impoverished people who are fully dependent on agriculture. With the help of the Diocesan Caritas in Opava an Ostrava, the local Caritas Tyachiv obtained from the Archdiocesan Caritas Olomouc some agricultural equipment, which was subsequently distributed to local poor families and newly established social farming facilities in the village of Tyachivka. Even though this farm was only established in 2015 and their harvest has so far been rather scarce, its members provide significant financial support to a nearby old people’s home in Usť Čor and to other socially disadvantaged families in the region.
The given agricultural tools included a welder, a pick, a chisel, a fork handle, a knife and a trowel, a power saw, a jig saw, a mowing machine, a set of Allen keys, two drills, two saws, seven hammers (out of which two are suitable for carpentry), two garden scissors, six buckets of gum, two brooms, five axes, five spades and five shovels.
The rest of the collection is to be consequently redistributed to people in the regions of Kolomyja, Ternopil a Melitopol in the east of Ukraine in the course of February and March 2016.
