Dorcas starts new project with the help of “Pope for Ukraine”

With the help of the “Pope for Ukraine” charity fund, Dorcas Ukraine will provide financial support to 2.500 people who are heavily impacted by the war in Eastern Ukraine.

“Pope for Ukraine” awarded a grant to Dorcas to provide cash grants to the most vulnerable people in Kharkiv, Zaporozhye and Donetsk oblasts. A recent assessment visit to the Mariupol sector of the line of contact between the fighting parties highlighted that people of working age without income continue to experience a range of urgent needs. This is the case even if these people fall outside known humanitarian target groups such as elderly, disabled and single-headed households. For Dorcas, lack of income is therefore an important consideration in determining vulnerability.

The newly started project has a multi-purpose cash modality, meaning that recipients have freedom of choice on which urgent basic needs they spend the support. The project is a follow-up to a similar project by Dorcas in the Ukraine Joint Response, a consortium with Caritas, Save the Children and Terre des Hommes, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Post distribution monitoring of this project showed that out of 170 interviewed households 169 saw cash as the most appropriate form of support, and one family being neutral about it. Grants were used to address a variety of urgent needs, such as medicines, food, utilities, shelter repairs and clothes, shoes or other non-food items. Continued support remains important as IDPs and residents near the contact line continue to urgently need medicines, food, and heating items.

Although not the primary goal of this project, cash grants can also be used to improve livelihoods in the long run. Dorcas is currently considering how to expand its programs combining cash grants with food production and/or income generation. On behalf of the people receiving the support, Dorcas would like to express a big thank you towards “Pope for Ukraine”!

In the winters of 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 68-years old Alexandra could not afford wood. She saved on food, lost 17 kg of weight and due to cold and moist ended up in hospital. Cash support helps Alexandra to pay off debts, purchase wood and “start to eat a little better”.

13 March 2017