The Estonian Refugee Council, together with its cooperation partners, will start offering psychological support and various group activities to Ukrainian war refugees across Estonia. Counselling helps obtain quality information, share and analyse experiences, and get answers to questions that may have been confusing so far.

• In Ukraine, we have already reached more than 10 000 households with multi-purpose cash assistance

The Estonian Refugee Council pays one-off school support to all school-age children receiving international protection or temporary protection who start school for the first time in Estonia. The purpose of the support is to help children with refugee backgrounds going to school in Estonia for the first time to cover basic school-related expenses. A lump-sum allowance of 50 euros per child shall be paid into the parent’s or guardian’s bank account upon request. 

The Estonian Refugee Council signed a cooperation agreement with the World Food Programme (WFP) to support more than 60,000 people in four oblasts in North-Eastern Ukraine with multi-purpose cash assistance. The amount of the grant allocated for this purpose by WFP is 12.5 million euros, which will reach those in need under the coordination of the Estonian Refugee Council's team on the ground in Ukraine.

More than 3000 accommodation offers from private individuals and companies have accumulated in the Refugee Council’s database. Of these, approximately 900 are offers of private residences (separate apartment or house), the rest of the offers are shared living spaces (apartment or room shared with the owner). So far, we have preferred private residence offers. Of all the offers, we have already mediated 682 (as of April 6) to households from Ukraine.

Since 2 March, the Estonian Refugee Council, with the support of Estonian donors, has already provided multi-purpose cash assistance to 5,077 households, or more than 15,000 people, in Ukraine. According to the official statistics of the UN, the Estonian Refugee Council (ERC) in cooperation with its local partner Unity for the Future (UF) has reached the most people in Ukraine with multi-purpose cash assistance.

Yesterday, the last evacuation buses organized by the Estonian Refugee Council left from Tallinn to Poland. It’s time to publish some numbers and write about what the crisis management that has been going on for more than a month looked like on the evacuation side. We began need-based evacuations from Medyka on February 25, when there was chaos at the border and opportunities to reach bigger cities were almost non-existent.

The escalation of the war in Ukraine caused a sense of powerlessness for many, which in turn created a positive desire to donate and help. Unfortunately, not all crises end in a few weeks, months or years. Help is also needed when the initial shock is over. How to provide support and be able to do it today, tomorrow and in the future?

Evacuations from the Ukrainian border

According to the Police and Boarder Guard Board, Estonia has received 24,608 Ukrainian citizens and their family members between 27 February and 27 March. Of these, 7,779 arrivals in Estonia have been coordinated by the Estonian Refugee Council.

The Estonian Refugee Council is the only official partner from Estonia that has permission to evacuate people from Poland, in cooperation with the Police and Border Guard Board and EXPO in Poland. 

"I have offered my home - the rooms are warm and ready. At the same time, I read in the media that there is a shortage of accommodation for refugees. However, no refugee has reached me. Why?”