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.

Students from the Lycée de Garçons d’Esch-sur-Alzette (LGE) in Esch organised the sale of home-made pastries during the breaks from 21 October to 12 November 2019. The proceeds were in favour of Ludmila Bazhenova and her grandson Danil. Both are war refugees from Donetsk (Eastern Ukraine), a city occupied by pro-Russian separatists.

Until the end of October, both were helped by Caritas in Dnipro. This aid organisation has passed on this difficult situation to us, in mid-October, from the seventy-year-old grandmother Ludmila and and her grandson Danil, who is twelve years old. Both fled from Donetsk in 2017 because the family situation had become untenable for the grandmother and the child.
Danil’s mother gave birth to a handicapped child in 2014 during the bombings. The father, not the natural father of Danil, was sent to prison where he was tortured for months by the separatists. During forced labor in the open air he managed to escape and he came back to the family in secret. But, he became so mentally unstable that he constantly beat Danil. The grandmother could not stand this difficult situation any longer, and since she found no help in the occupied zone, she decided to flee with her grandson. They escaped without any problems through unguarded mine-filled fields, into free Ukraine to safety and reached the city of Dnipro.

During the first year, however, all their money reserves evaporated without them being able to stabilize their situation financially. Finally they asked for help from the Greek Catholic community and Caritas. The latter asked us in mid-October if we could help on our part.
In order to guarantee this help for the two refugees, we visited a dozen classes of the LGE, during the subject “Life and Society”, to explain to the students how a war destroys a family in the long term. But we also explained that every student can help this family if they participate in a bake sale. In every class there were students who were willing to help.
During the breaks the students and the teachers could taste delicious cakes for two and a half weeks for 1€ a piece. The sale generated a total of 650€. With this money we will pay Ludmila and Danil the rent of an apartment until April 2020. Until then Caritas hopes to find a way out for the two refugees.

Since this Thursday, July 25, 2019, Anselmo Malvetti, member of our association, has started his peace march in Eastern Ukraine. Since the year 2014, in this part of Europe a war against the Russian aggressor is taking place. This war is today largely ignored by the European media.

Anselmo knows Ukraine because he was there in 2013, a year before the outbreak of this war, to bring humanitarian aid to an orphanage in Cherkassy, a city in central Ukraine.

During this trip he also visited with his friends the Crimea, then Ukrainian, which was annexed by Russia in 2014 when the Ukrainian people were demonstrating in the capital, on the Maidan, their desire to turn towards Europe and not Asia.

As a student and a European citizen, Anselmo understood that the Ukrainian people needed Europe’s support on their way to an independent state not subject to Russia. As a pacifist, he shows solidarity with the innocent victims of this war.

He invites anyone interested to join him for a few days’ march for peace in a beautiful landscape. Anyone who wants to support him in his action can make a donation to the victims of this war in Ukraine, whom we support in rebuilding their lives.

This donation can be made by bank transfer to the account IBAN LU28 0099 7800 0064 0276 (CCRALULL) with the mention: Anselmo Malvetti Peace March.

You can follow Anselmo’s progress by logging on to Instagram @eefalt.photography or on Facebook @eefaltontour

To find out more about Anselmo’s motivation to undertake this solidarity action, you can read below, in PDF format, his interview published in the luxemburgish newspaper “Tageblatt” on 19 July 2019.