UPDATES FROM SAMARITAN'S PURSE
Ukraine
Last week the team saw an average of 150 patients daily across 5 medical operations. The disaster assistance response team (DART) is working with US and national staff to develop partners and maintain the logistics network which sends desperately needed supplies to the most affected areas of the country. Partnerships with local grocery suppliers is helping to bolster our distribution network. The most significant impediment to food distribution progress is fuel supply. Water, sanitation, hygiene, and medical programs are expanding operations to meet increasing needs throughout the country in consultation with local officials. Relationships with medical contacts in the region are developing to improve our ability to support medical infrastructure. One water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) filtration system deployed in the south has been outfitted with desalination components to treat the brackish input water, one system is awaiting install once a well is drilled. The team is managing fuel supply and stock issues seen throughout the region and affecting the operations of several other humanitarian aid providers. Salvations and prayers with people across all our country operations continue to provide encouragement that the Lord is at work.
Moldova
The DART continues to distribute large amounts of food (last week we distributed 127 metric tons of food), hygiene kits, bedding kits, infant kits, and other non-food items to church partners and government centres serving refugees and internally displaced people. They will continue resupplying these churches and churches serving affected people within southern Ukraine. Recently a national driver has joined the team who is also a pastor. In addition to food and NFI distributions, an appliance program is developing to provide host churches with kitchen appliances to sustain large numbers of refugees (kitchen appliances supplied to 34 churches so far). Applicants for this program have been assessed and appliance pricing and distribution options are being presented to the participating churches. Pastors and those directly serving refugees are engaging in training to better serve the spiritual and psychological condition of refugees. This weekend’s counselling and emotional support program will be provided alongside a distribution and during a scheduled training time. A previous participant in this training who holds a governmental position provided great assistance to the team by representing our organisation to customs for the release of IT equipment.
Samaritan’s Purse currently has 139 staff on the ground between Ukraine, Poland, and Moldova.
Pictured here are the first Ukrainian’s we have safely flown from Poland to Toronto. We have a Ukrainian speaking staff member on the ground in Poland who has been sourcing the refugees through our extensive network and sorting all the paper work. Last week we evacuated 28 men, women and children (pictured) this week she is working on evacuating even more!
Ways to give financially are listed on this page, but if you have any question regarding payments, please contact missionsfinance@elim.org.uk or call 01684 588940.
(When this appeal closes in the future and there are any surplus funds, they will be used towards other disaster relief projects we are involved in, at the time)