• On January 22, the demo day of the "Empowering Women" mentoring program took place in Tallinn. The five teams that made the most progress in the last three months were awarded €1,000 in start-up grants at the final of the program. Read more.
• Estonian Refugee Council was awarded with the Civil Society Initiative of the Year award for the campaign "For Ukraine!", which we conducted together with the NGO Mondo and the Ukrainian Cultural Center.

Humanitarian aid in Ukraine

What are we doing now? 

• We provide multi-purpose cash assistance, with which people can buy food, medicine, hygiene supplies and other basic necessities. As of now, we have provided cash-based assistance to approximately 200,000 people worth a total of 31 million euros. The allowance is UAH 2,220 (= about EUR 61) per household member per month. You can get help for a total of three months. A separate call center and application platform has been opened for applying for cash-based support in Ukraine: https://register.pagulasabi.ee/  
• We provide financial support for wintering and the purchase of solid fuels to Ukrainian refugees in Georgia and to those in need inside Ukraine. It is estimated that we will reach 4,400 vulnerable households in Ukraine and 250 households in Georgia. The target areas are primarily Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Sumy and Chernihiv regions in Ukraine, only areas under the control of the Ukrainian government, and in Georgia primarily Tbilisi and its surroundings. The amount of the subsidy is 14,000 UAH (= about €350 per household in Ukraine and €370 in Georgia).
• We are restarting the food distribution program in areas where cash-based assistance is not possible (eg de-occupied/liberated areas, areas under frequent attacks). The value of one food basket is around 57 euros.
• We have supported hospitals in Eastern Ukraine with medical supplies, medical equipment, food, generators and other necessities. 
• We have distributed 2,900 blankets, 4,600 sleeping bags and other essentials to people in bomb shelters and in internally displaced people (IDP) accommodation centers.
• We are part of the Joint Market Monitoring Initiative (JMMI), within which we help the humanitarian aid sector to keep a constant overview of where and how the markets are functioning in Ukraine, whether and how fast the prices of basic commodities are rising, etc. Our area of responsibility is Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv Oblasts.

In addition to the support of Estonian donors, we also make financial interventions with international partners:

• With funding from the European Union (ECHO), we support 69,080 people in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Odessa regions.
• We are supporting 20,500 people in Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Poltava, Cherkassy, Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Odessa regions with funding from the Ukraine Humanitarian Aid Fund managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
• With funding from the International Rescue Committee (IRC), we supported 24,000 people in Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Odessa and Mykolaiv regions.
• With the World Food Program (WFP), we supported 60,500 people in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions with a cash-based intervention.

Supporting Ukrainian refugees in Estonia

What are we doing now?

• We advise people in Tallinn (Liivalaia 28, Eesti Pagulasabi Tallinn office) from Tuesday to Thursday (Tuesday-Thursday 10am-5pm). The helpline +372 5881 1311 (open Mon-Fri from 10 am to 5 pm), e-mail dopomoha@pagulasabi.ee is open to Ukrainian refugees and people helping them. Viber, Whatsapp, Telegram channels are also open for advice at +372 5464 0007.
• The most important information for refugees is at the top of our website in the frequently asked questions section. We continuously update the information in the section in Estonian, English, Russian and Ukrainian.
• We broker accommodation from our database, currently we have brokered more than 1000 accommodation places. Due to the shortage of accommodation places, we currently do not provide long-term accommodation in public accommodation facilities managed by the Social Insurance Board. We focus on providing emergency accommodation to those Ukrainians who have suddenly lost their place of residence. We are again collecting accommodation offers from private individuals (primarily in Tallinn, Tartu and other major cities), offers can be entered via the form on the website.
• We are currently organizing group counseling for Ukrainians across Estonia on two topics: field of work and digital skills. A total of 197 digital skills workshops, 122 adaptation, 113 child adaptation and 47 work-related group counseling sessions have taken place. Counseling takes place all over Estonia, and nearly 3,200 Ukrainian refugees have taken part in them.
• We pay a school allowance to all refugee children starting school in Estonia. Currently, 4,646 children have received support, in the total amount of 232,200 euros.
• Together with Garage48, we help Ukrainian women to start micro-enterprises in Estonia. The best women's teams of the entrepreneurship program have been selected, the participants are being counseled and supported. Already this month, we are starting a new entrepreneurship program for women in Ukraine.
• In the direction of mental health, in cooperation with the NGO Peaasjad, we brought to Estonia a methodology called MindSpring, which supports the adaptation of people with a refugee background in a new environment. We are going to offer the program to refugees all over Estonia.

Estonian Refugee Aid's activities in Ukraine are financed by donations from private individuals and companies, as well as by various institutional donors. You can continue to support our activities on our website or on the For Ukraine campaign page.

NGO Estonian Refugee Council is a public interest non-profit organization founded in 2000, whose goal is to stand up for the rights and well-being of refugees in Estonia and abroad. Estonian Refugee Council is a humanitarian aid organization certified by the European Union. ERC has been providing humanitarian aid in Eastern Ukraine since 2014.