December 12, 2016 Ukraine

Caritas delivered 1,5 tons of Christmas presents to Ukraine

Christmas presents for more than 300 Ukrainian children filled up a lorry of the Caritas of the Archdiocese of Olomouc (CAO). The lorry went abroad on Tuesday, 13^th December 2016. The children will unwrap the presents during the Ukrainian Christmas – on 5th and 6th January. They are from socially disadvantaged families, from children’s homes or they had to abandon their homes due to the military conflict in the east of the country…

The “Christmas Present” project has been a tradition for more than 10 years. It was started by the director of the Caritas of the Archdiocese of Olomouc, Václav Keprt, when he brought the first presents to the children’s home in Bortniky. “Since then we have been delivering more and more Christmas presents to Ukraine. This year, the Czech donors brought more than 300 packages to the Caritas branches. The packages include mostly clothes, shoes, writing utensils, colouring pictures, notebooks and toys,” said the project coordinator for Ukraine, Vasyl Vasyliv. The ACO director will distribute the Christmas presents between children in five Ukrainian towns and villages. The packages will go the children’s home in Bortniky, to children living in very poor conditions in Lopatyn, Ternopil, Kolomyia and this year for the first time also in Khmelnytskyi. “We are delivering packages for the total of thirty children there. Together with our partners we picked the poorest children. Many of the children have their parents dead or they are half orphans or they had to abandon their homes in the east of Ukraine, where the war is going on,” explained Vasyliv while also mentioning that the children could hardly afford new clothes, shoes and various toys.

On Monday, each of the presents were sealed by Czech customs officers. The next day, the lorry set out for Ukraine to the customs office in Ternopil. The presents will be delivered from there to four other places.

This year, Czech donors chose and wrapped 304 packages for particular children and some of them also added other presents. The Christmas delivery from the Czech Republic weighs 1,5 tons.