Local connection vital for frontline charity
International
As the war in Ukraine continues, Emmaus parishioner Maurice O’Connell says the trauma and hardship is worse than ever.
Maurice (pictured) returned recently from his fourth six-month stint with the Ukrainian non-government organisation New Dawn.
“From the start of the war and when I first arrived in May 2022 we were distributing 100 food packs every day to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs),” Maurice said. “Now we are giving out around 220 every day.
“Last year these were almost all to the Odesa poor. The Russian advances in the east have seen a renewal of IDPs arriving at our doorstep and we are distributing about 100 packs daily to IDPs and the rest to Odesa’s poor.There is a lot of hardship.”
Maurice said the minimum old age pension is about A$95 a month. Inflation has been running at around 15 per cent annually and the pension has barely risen.
At the same time, the United Nations estimates there are 221,000 IDPs in the state of Odesa, of whom 135,000 have a household monthly income of less than A$360.
“I feel we are only scratching the surface with the help we provide,” he said. “At the same time there is the trauma of war.”
A personal initiative of Maurice’s has been to hand out cash of between A$200 and A$300 to some of the more desperate IDP households, using money that has come from friends and contacts in Adelaide.
“A common feature is that there is chronic illness or injury which results in hefty medical expenses while the primary care giver is unable to work,” he said.
“This has included recent arrivals from the Donbas area where they have had to evacuate due to recent Russian advances.”
Maurice said every time he has been to Ukraine there has been a particular story that he will never forget. This year, it involved a single mum with two young teenage kids. She had fled from Nova Kakhovka, a village on the Russian side of the Dnipro River.
Her 15-year-old son had cycled to the next village and did not return. The next day, a neighbour knocked on her door and said ‘You may want to come out. There is the body of a dead man lying on the road. It might be your son but we do not know because the body has no head, is missing an arm and has been terribly mutilated’.
“It was indeed the body of her 15 year old,” Maurice said.
“There was no investigation by the Russians and no accountability. This was the worst but one of many stories of what ‘Russkiy Mir’ or ‘Russian Way’ means to Ukrainians.
“What is particularly poignant is that this occurred in Kherson state which is Russian speaking and which Russia claims to have ‘liberated’. The soldiers on the ground know this is a fiction and that they are generally not welcome.”
Maurice said New Dawn has become a formidable organisation and is now one of the largest Ukrainian humanitarian NGOs in southern Ukraine.
“Not bad for a bunch of disparate Ukrainian volunteers who got together on the first day of the war to help their fellow Ukrainians,” he said, adding its success was largely due to a charismatic young CEO Julia, and the only other foreigner involved, Philipp.
New Dawn continues to partner with large international organisations including Caritas (the Catholic Church’s aid and development agency).
“Our strength is that under Philipp we have developed a reputation for reliable implementation of projects and with a high level of accountability and transparency,” he said.
“Most of these projects involve delivery of aid to the formerly occupied Kherson state such as water reticulation, bore holes, roofing materials, winterisation (wood/coal for heating) and hygiene.”
Maurice is “point man” for projects supported by South Australians.
For example, Rotary has entered a partnership with New Dawn and has provided around $300,000 which will go towards a demountable medical centre in rural Kherson, after the original centre was destroyed.
Another beneficiary is a rural school which was intact but the 80 students had been forced to learn online since early 2022 because schools can’t open unless they have a bomb shelter.
Rotary provided $12,000 and over six months the villagers constructed the shelter.
New Dawn is also working with a local Adelaide NGO ‘Rebuilding Schools Ukraine’ to rebuild a wing of a damaged school. This is a $200,000 project. The school had been occupied in 2022 and badly trashed by the Russians, who housed their soldiers on the first floor and used the basement as a torture chamber. It was liberated in late 2022.
Maurice said he was motivated and encouraged to help because of the “incredible support” he had received from the South Australian community and which had made a difference.
Educated at St Ignatius’ College in Adelaide, Maurice has “little doubt that the Jesuits there had formed him into the person he was and influenced his desire to help those who desperately needed it”.
“I am proud when I talk to Ukrainians and tell them of the broad-based support that I get from the other side of the world,” he added.
newdawn.org.ua
