How BEARR grants help frontline rural communities
We would like to share with our readers a report from one of BEARR’s partners helping in a rural area that was previously occupied and is very close to the frontline. As they show – a grant from The BEARR Trust’s Community Resilience Fund helps provide a range of smallish items (school chairs, tools, grass trimmers, medicines, a medical trolley, a generator, a sewing machine), all of which help to bring a degree of normality (and safety from bushfires) to devastated villages. This is what they told us:
“We received the BEARR Trust grant in July and immediately started preparing for our humanitarian trip. Our focus was on two villages we had already visited before so we knew the situation on the ground, and we were in constant touch with the heads of the communities.
“there were no undamaged houses left, and most of the infrastructure remains in ruins, including the local school and hospital”
The village of P…. was devastated by the Russians in 2022, so there were no undamaged houses left, and most of the infrastructure remains in ruins, including the local school and hospital. This time we brought some construction equipment for the community: a petrol saw, an electric screwdriver, a power drill and a cable extension lead. We also brought a brush cutter as the whole area suffers from severe drought and the villagers need to cut the grass to prevent bushfires. The P…. community managed to build a 3-room education hub for the kids in the village (about 30 children). We supported the launch of the education hub by providing 15 folding chairs. Also, the construction of a small hospital is in progress, and we brought them a medical trolley. It may sound like a small contribution but in fact a regular medical trolley costs as much as a nurse can earn per month so the community couldn’t afford to buy one, nor could they rely on the state budget allocations.
The village of L… (and the adjacent village of L…) weren’t severely damaged in 2022, so most of the houses are in good condition and the villages host more than 300 refugees from the more affected areas of the Kherson region. The biggest current problem is a severe drought and Russian drones which set fire to the fields – so the community dreams of having their own fire engine. We brought a pair of brush cutters that will be of help in preventing bushfires. We also brought a professional overlock sewing machine to a workshop where local women and refugees are volunteering together for their own community. We also found out that many of the volunteers lack access to medicines or can’t afford them as the villages have no pharmacy. The women made a list of the medicines they need to take regularly and we bought them as a follow-up to our work in the village. The whole region of Mykolaiv suffers from inadequate water supplies, and the situation can be even worse when there are blackouts. We took a medium-size generator to the L… community to make sure that the pumps work even if there’s no electricity.
Such tailored humanitarian aid trips make a real difference to communities and it’s very important to gather as much information as possible before providing aid. Now we can see that there’s a huge problem with access to education in the villages. The schools have been destroyed, and there’s a shortage of teachers. Online schooling is not sufficient. Our team are considering moving to the villages for long periods to teach teenagers (English, IT, arts). We discussed the education issues with the heads of the villages, and they were enthusiastic about our idea.”
