Author: cw

In Newsletter No. 10 we made an appeal to support the urgent operation of Igor, a civilian victim who was seriously injured in February 2021 during clashes between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists.

Since then, Igor has been waiting at home for the possibility of an operation. But the family could not raise the money needed to pay for the operation. In the meantime Igor’s condition was getting worse.

At the end of April, we heard about his case from someone we knew. We decided to pay the costs of the operation and all the necessary treatments.

In May the operation, which had been postponed several times, could be performed. It was an operation that lasted from morning to night and where all the pieces of projectiles that Igor had received in the abdomen were removed. And his organs were put back in their place. Igor was in hospital for a month and went through a very tough post-operative period.

Today he has returned home and continues daily rehabilitation treatment in hospital. For weeks he will have to keep a strict diet but will remain disabled for the rest of his life. In a recent phone call, he thanked our association and all the donors who spontaneously made a donation to save his life.

Our non-profit organisation “Pour la Paix et contre la Guerre” financed and sent in 2019 all the musical instruments to a group of young people who want to oppose music to war.

Avdiivka is an industrial town in Ukraine, which borders the town of Donetsk controlled by pro-Russian militias. In the pre-war period, i.e. before 2014, cultural life was mainly concentrated in Donetsk. In Avdiivka there were only factories and dormitory towns. Since the summer of 2014, the inhabitants of Avdiivka have been living close to the front line.
A Ukrainian-patriotic couple, Svetlana and Oleksiy Savkevych, have been working since the beginning of the war to promote leisure activities for the young people of their town. In May 2018, they even managed to organise a festival of Ukrainian culture in Avdiivka.
This festival generated great interest in music among young people. That is why Oleksiy wanted to find and set up a music room for young people. It should be a space where young people could meet each other away from the streets and war, learn from each other and make music together.

In the beginning, the young people met in garages and abandoned houses and formed a rock band. They had poor quality guitars and only one old drum kit, which a local woman had given them as a gift. Broomsticks were used to hold the microphones. Oleksiy asked the city council and political leaders to give him a room where young people could continue to make music.
In December 2018, our association contacted Oleksiy Savkevich and offered to organise a charity concert for the benefit of young musicians in Avdiivka, so that the instruments could be financed. We then invited Oleksiy and his daughter Marika to our home. On March 24, 2019, we organized a big charity concert in Villerupt (France).
The day before, on 23 March, at the end of the mass in the church of Bascharage, Oleksiy spoke about the dangers and difficulties of daily life in Avdiivka, his hometown near the front. On this occasion, people also made donations to the project.
Thanks to the donations from Bascharage and the profits from the charity concert in Villerupt, we were able to buy the following equipment: three electric guitars, two acoustic guitars, a bass guitar, four amplifiers, a keyboard, a mixing table, two microphones, two stands and the necessary cables. The material was sent to Avdiivka at the end of December 2019. In the meantime, a large room in a school in the town has been made available to the young people for their “music room” project. They have renovated this room, and since January 2020 they have been playing music there in peace and freedom.

From the end of July to the beginning of September 2019, a young member of our association, Mr. Anselmo Malvetti, undertook a peace march from Lake Geneva to the shores of the Mediterranean. He thus wanted to draw attention to the Russian-Ukrainian war which, since 2014, has caused more than 14,000 deaths and has driven 1.5 million Ukrainians from their homeland. Most of them have taken refuge in free Ukraine.

In autumn, Anselmo gave us the twelve most beautiful photos he took during his walk to make a beautiful calendar for 2020, thanks to Lisa Battestini’s design.

Since the beginning of December it has been sold for 10€ (8€ for students). 100% of the profit goes to the victims of the wars that we help to rebuild their lives. On our website you can see examples of how we are helping them in a concrete way.
If someone still wants to buy a calendar, they can do so by ordering it by phone (+352 621 280 850) or by sending a text message, leaving their name and phone number.

During the month of November 2019, Ukrainian Caritas in Dnipro, a city of millions in eastern Ukraine, contacted us to ask if we could send clothes, shoes and gifts to be distributed to about 40 refugee children aged 1 to 15 years.
Spontaneously, several members of our association donated clothes, shoes and gifts for this aid action. Two boxes of children’s clothes were given to us by the Red Cross Section of Villerupt (France).

The Greek-Catholic community of Dnipro organizes the help for the families who fled from the pro-Russian occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk. All fled for political and/or religious reasons.
On 15 December we sent five large cardboard boxes with a total of 80 kilos to Dnipro, which arrived there on Friday 20 December. Everything was distributed to the children, young people and parents.