Olena Zelenska Foundation | Фундація Олени Зеленської

The large foster family of Moiseyenkos moved into their new home in Lutsk city after two years of searching for permanent housing. To settle in, they came from Zaporizhzhia with all their belongings 🙌🏻 The Moiseyenkos’ house is in the occupied Khmelnytske village, not far from Tokmak city. Some say it has been completely looted and is no longer suitable for living. Despite the difficulties, the spouses Iryna and Oleksandr continue adopting children from institutions. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, they took in four more children. Now their family includes seven foster children. Moiseyenkos took 3-year-old Liza and 5-year-old Kateryna last year when one of the orphanages of Zaporizhzhia city was dissolved due to danger. But the oldest children, 14-year-old Andrii and 12-year-old Anna became members of this large foster family only a few months ago. The teens quickly found a common language with other children and love to help parents look after their babies. The Moiseyenkos are another large foster family who lost their home because of the war and finally owns it thanks to Olena Zelenska Foundation’s “Room for Childhood” project. The construction of the house was backed by the government of the United Arab Emirates 🏠

We continue to share how we are arranging shelters 🏫 This is the second lyceum in Kremenchuk, where the Olena Zelenska Foundation, thanks to accumulated international funds, financed the reconstruction and equipping of the basement into a comfortable and modern shelter. The partner for this project was the KSE Foundation. The reconstructed shelter can accommodate up to 900 people at once, as its area is quite large – almost 1000 square meters. This is a key school, so several kindergartens operate based on it, and children from one of these kindergartens (50-60 children) will also use the arranged shelter. From this huge site, the builders removed tons of garbage. A new ventilation system was created in the shelter so that the children could breathe safely. During the renovation, drainage was installed, waterproofing was ensured, and an additional barrier-free exit from the shelter was provided. Such a large area needs to be intuitively understandable, so the team thought out a comfortable zoning for children. Inside, everything is arranged so that during an air alarm, it is possible to study, play, and work with a psychologist 👥 Details were shared by the director and a student of the lyceum in our video.

🌟 Today marks a special milestone as #Estonia and the Olena Zelenska Foundation join hands to celebrate the opening of a new family-style small group home in #Ukraine's Zhytomyr Region! With Estonia's generous funding of 376,000 euros, this initiative is a beacon of hope for families in need. 🏡 This family home, a part of OZF's "Room for Childhood" project, provides a safe haven for foster parents Anastasiia and Oleksii Melnyk and their 7 children, offering them a comfortable living space amidst challenging times. 🇺🇦🤝🇪🇪 Thank you to everyone who helped this project become a reality - Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Olena Zelenska Foundation | Фундація Олени Зеленської, Iryna Hudz, Valeriia Savenko, Tarmo Needo, Margus Gering, Andrea Kivi, Klen Jäärats, Tiina Joosu-Palu, Kertu Mooste, Anna Silem #FromThePeopleOfEstonia #ESTDEVinUkraine

#Estonia and the Olena Zelenska Foundation | Фундація Олени Зеленської (OZF) on Saturday opened the first of four brand new family-style small group homes in #Ukraine' #Zhytomyr region. The house was built as part of OZF's "Room for Childhood" initiative with financial support from Estonia. "Despite the war, the loss of their homes, the usual ring, these families with a huge number of children have endless optimism and continue to dream – and this is the most important thing," Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska said according to a press release. "I am glad that my foundation provides such families space for their dreams – and not just space in the form of new square meters," she added. The Estonian Center for International Development (ESTDEV) managed the project on Estonia's behalf. "Offering Ukraine hope is a monumental task, given how extensive the devastation caused by this war is," said Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV) CEO Klen Jäärats. "ESTDEV is continuing its exemplary cooperation with OZF in the construction of family-style group homes, and throughout the process, we aim to provide comprehensive support for Ukraine's social welfare system." "Supporting Ukraine is our top priority, and the completion of this family house is an important milestone clearly demonstrating that we are keeping our promise," Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200) highlighted. "We will continue to invest in a secure future for Ukraine and Ukrainian children. Every step we take for Ukraine will help bring the war to a victorious end." Six months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, parents and foster parents Anastasiia and Oleksii Melnyk and the seven children in their care moved from the Donetsk region to temporary housing in the Zhytomyr Oblast town of #Hryshkivtsi. The Melnyks have one biological child, age 12, and six foster children ranging in age from 8-15. The newly finished 285-square-meter family-style group home has six bedrooms and five bathrooms and was designed to be mobility accessible. The yard also includes an underground concrete bomb shelter. Estonia provided €376,000 in funding for the project, and has financed the construction of a further three family-style small group homes in the Zhytomyr region as well, slated to be completed by the end of the year. This summer, ESTDEV, in cooperation with OZF and Estonia's Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Social Affairs, will also bring the families who were chosen to live in these houses to Estonia, where the adult caregivers will receive training on trauma-informed foster care and the children can attend a summer camp designed to provide respite from wartime conditions in Ukraine. https://lnkd.in/dNRrMFE3

Recreation near the mountains, new friends and hobbies - all this awaits the children at the Artek-Bukovel. The Olena Zelenska Foundation | Фундація Олени Зеленської continues the project for the recreation and rehabilitation of children from large foster families in the Carpathians ⛰️ This season, we have funded six shifts of the Artek-Bukovel camp for 1,500 children. Therefore, children will be able to spend some time far away from the sounds of explosions and air alarms. It is important for the Foundation that the maximum number of children from each large foster family go to the camp. After all, it is extremely difficult for foster parents to provide vacation for all their children at the same time. We are grateful to the international partner of the Foundation - Open Society Foundations - for the opportunity to insure a part of a happy childhood for children from large foster families 🤝🏻 The project to organize recreation for children has been going on for the second year in a row. Last year, we managed to organize camps for about 1,200 children from more than 200 large foster families 🏞️


We would like to provide more details about our work on arranging shelters 🏫 Here, in the basement of one of the lyceums in Kremenchuk, unused furniture was stored during peaceful times. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, this cold and damp shelter was supposed to accommodate 1,300 students of the lyceum in total, who study in three shifts. The Olena Zelenska Foundation | Фундація Олени Зеленської, thanks to accumulated international funds, financed the reconstruction and arrangement of this basement into a comfortable and modern shelter. KSE Foundation acted as a partner. In the rebuilt 300 square meters, 420 students can be accommodated at one time. Thus, there is enough space for community residents who can seek refuge here in case of danger. Thanks to the presence of the equipped shelter, the lyceum got permission to conduct offline classes. After quarantine and two years of full-scale invasion, children can finally see each other again, receive quality education, and interact with their peers. In the video, watch more about the story of the lyceum, as told by its director and a student 🙌🏻

Rehabilitation for children affected by the full-scale war. The Voices of Children camp, together with the Olena Zelenska Foundation, organizes a summer camp in the Carpathians 🤝

🧑💻👩🏻💻 Nearly 5,000 Ukrainian students will be given the opportunity to study online without barriers. Laptops for their distance learning were provided by the government of the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪 as part of the Device Coalition. The largest number of these devices will be sent to the Sumy region. Konotop, Shostka, Sumy, and Okhtyrka are the districts currently under daily shelling, where children are forced to study exclusively online. Devices will also be provided to students in Dnipropetrovsk region and to those who have had to relocate from Donetsk region. All laptops will be distributed to schoolchildren in grades 5-11 from vulnerable groups. We thank the government of the United Arab Emirates for its unwavering support of Ukrainian education. As well as Embassy of Ukraine in the UAE. Olena Zelenska Foundation, together with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, continues to engage partners to provide devices to Ukrainian schoolchildren. By the end of the year, we aim to meet the children’s critical need for 100,000 devices. 🤝

🇱🇻 650 laptops for our Device Coalition were donated by Latvian partners, specifically for children from Chernihiv region. The Olena Zelenska Foundation team met with Latvian public organizations and local business representatives during a working visit to Riga. Thanks to the Ziedot.lv Foundation and to companies Kurekss Ltd, Stiga RM, Draugiem Group, DeskTime, TET, Accenture for providing devices for Ukrainian students. By 2024, the Foundation has already collected and distributed about 50,000 laptops and tablets. As of January 2024, the total need for gadgets for teachers and students is about 400,000 units. To meet this need, it was necessary to unite more initiatives in this direction. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine launched the Device Coalition, and the Foundation joined it. The ambitious goal of the Device Coalition is to provide nearly 100,000 Ukrainian children and at least 30,000 teachers with gadgets for online education. These devices are needed now for vulnerable children in regions where education is largely delivered online. 🤝 We're grateful to our Latvian partners for their help. We continue to search for donors to meet the need as soon as possible.

🚑 At least half a thousand ambulances have been destroyed or stolen by the enemy. It's not just a material loss, it's a risk of not being able to reach those who need help in time. This event is particularly important because it will save many lives. Together the First Lady Olena Zelenska with the team from the Foundation and the Ministry of Health, we were able to hand over 50 ambulances provided by the government of the United Arab Emirates. Each vehicle has everything needed to provide emergency medical care and evacuate patients as quickly as possible, even in off-road conditions. This is exactly what our medics and, more importantly, our patients need in times of war. 23 vehicles arrived in Ukraine at the end of last year. Yesterday, we received the rest of the batch - 27. We’re grateful to our friends from the UAE and the UAE Embassy in Ukraine (tag) for this vital help and for the many other life-saving joint projects they have undertaken with the Foundation - from 2500 laptops distributed to children in frontline communities, to contributions to the construction of 10 new houses for large foster families who have lost their homes due to the war. The ambulances will go (some have already gone) to the frontline regions, where the shelling is most frequent, where there are wounded every day, where help is always needed. There's nothing more important than saving lives. Together with friends from around the world, we do everything to ensure that Ukraine has everything necessary for this. 🇺🇦