Serkan Eren, founder and first chairman of STELP, was recently on a relief mission in eastern Ukraine with our partner Zhyva nadiya. The team distributed food and clothing parcels to the last remaining people in mostly destroyed and abandoned villages in and near the front line. The food is enough to get them through the next six to eight weeks. NGOs can rarely enter these embattled places, which is why it was particularly important for us to undertake this risky mission.
Why are there still people there at all? Why haven’t they fled already?
Some people from these places in eastern Ukraine have never left their village and are simply too afraid to flee. Elderly residents are sometimes in too poor a condition to be evacuated, let alone leave on their own. Some care for their injured relatives on site. And still others resist leaving the graves of their deceased loved ones. There are countless, individual reasons for staying there despite the war raging around them.
Why is our founder Serkan Eren going straight to the front?
There are a number of reasons for this:
1. We need to see how our partners are working on a regular basis.
2. It is important for us to know what is really being changed and accomplished with your donations.
3. We are not better than the Ukrainians. We were just lucky to be born in Germany and to be allowed to live here. We don’t want to be just the donors sitting in their safe homes watching all the suffering from a protected distance. Our Ukrainian partners should also feel this.
How can you help us?
We have made it our mission not to forget these people and to help them. They deserve to get through this difficult time as best they can. Therefore, we continue to ask for your donations. Every euro counts – every donation reaches its rightful destination.
