Stefan Vorontsov: guarding hope of people in occupation
"If we weren’t helping these people, they would probably go over to the Russian side and believe the propaganda, because really: if they don't get help, maybe we did forget about them." - Stefan explains.
Stefan Vorontsov was born and raised in Nova Kakhovka, and it was here that he met the full-scale invasion. A few days after it started, Stefan and his friend Max Kilder started creating secure information chats for people from Nova Kakhovka.
The first requests and offers of help began to appear in the chats, so the friends started delivering medicine and food to those who needed it. The initiative resonated with the town's volunteers and was named “Humanity”. During the first month of the full-scale war, the team processed over 30,000 requests. "Medicines were delivered by boats and evacuation buses. Some critical medicines were given to people, but most were donated to intensive care units and children's hospitals, because the russians did not supply medicines there," - the volunteer recalls. Later, the team began preparing food packages, sometimes up to 300 of them per day.
Since March 2022, the team has helped more than 2,500 people leave the city. The organization estimates that about 30-40% of those people are children. Stefan shares that over 100 thousand people have been helped by “Humanity” since its inception. "None of this would be possible without the initiative of ordinary people who opened 100-USD fundraisers, sold art and so on…" the volunteer thanked.
Since the spring of 2022, UVS has been regularly supporting Stefan and Humanity with coordination and financial support through donations to enable volunteers to help people in the temporarily occupied territories with less risk and more efficiency.
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