After their house was bombed, Tamara and her adult son Mykhailo abandoned it. With temporary shelter in Dnipro and Humanity & Inclusion’s services, they’ve received the help they need.
Severely affected by Covid-19 before the war in Ukraine began, Tamara could no longer walk and remained bedridden for a whole year. Thanks to volunteers, she and her son were evacuated to a rehabilitation center in Dnipro after their house was destroyed by an airstrike.
Mykhailo tells his story:
Volunteers evacuated us from Bakhmut after our house was hit by a missile. At that moment, I was riding my bicycle to a pharmacy and was trapped under shelling. It's a miracle that I survived. Then I got back home and saw that there were no windows and smoke everywhere. I went into the house and saw deep holes in its walls. I thought that I had lost my mother, who was home at the moment of the explosion. Then I looked and saw her laying in the farthest room, in the safest place. She survived. After that, we found some volunteers and asked them to evacuate us. We knew that we would go to Dnipro. That's how we got to the Ocean of Kindness collective center.
We thank HI for its psychological support. People who come from active war zones are afraid, any knock frightens them. Any noise seems like an explosion. It is very important to receive psychological first aid.
HI’s teams have partnered with numerous temporary shelters, including Ocean of Kindness located in Dnipro, to bring rehabilitation specialists and experts in mental health and psychosocial support to the residents and staff. HI's teams assist people displaced by war, but particularly elderly people with limited mobility and people with disabilities evacuated from risk areas.
Tamara shares her story:
We have been living here since November 30. We arrived from Bakhmut where my son and I had a private house.
A year before the war, we all had Covid-19. My husband died from the virus and I was hospitalized for three months. I was brought home on a stretcher. I couldn't get up for the whole year, I couldn't walk. After evacuation, we arrived in Dnipro.
Masha, HI’s rehabilitation specialist started to train me and perform specialized exercises. When I was bedridden for a year after Covid, I lost 80 pounds and am still unable to gain weight. After a month and a half of exercising with Masha, I finally started to walk.
An HI psychologist also visited us. She talked to us and helped us to relieve our stress. I couldn't sleep at night because I kept remembering what we'd been through. Now, I'm feeling much better. I even come to the kitchen to help wash the dishes. I do this to express my gratitude to the people who accepted us here and saved us. I am deeply grateful to the rehabilitation specialists and psychologists who literally helped us to get back on our feet.