Heal Young Hearts: Support Children in Ukraine

This July, our team spent time in Ukraine, meeting with existing partners and building new ones - all in service of one question: how do we build lasting support around the children whose lives have been upended by war?

We visited Sunflower Camp, where children affected by the war spend their summer away from it. We spent time with the Ukraine Volya Foundation and their "Level Up" camp, built around the same idea, that kids need space to rebuild, not just get through. These camps are where Heal Young Hearts starts: safe places where children can simply be children again.

But a summer camp is only as strong as what surrounds it. So we also met with the Child Dignity Center and the Institute of Mental Health, both at Ukrainian Catholic University, whose research and training are shaping how trauma in children and families is understood and treated in Ukraine more broadly. We talked with the Nadija Foundation, a new Scandinavian-Ukrainian initiative building research and rehabilitation infrastructure from the ground up. And we connected with Malteser International, whose psychosocial support work with displaced families and veterans in Ukraine goes back years, and the Superhumans Center in Lviv, where prosthetics, surgery, and psychological care come together for thousands of patients — many of them parents whose recovery shapes their children's.

With each of them, the conversation was the same at its core: where does our experience and expertise actually fit into the work already happening here. Some of these are long-standing relationships. Others are just starting. All of them are shaping how Heal Young Hearts grows.

This summer, we're grateful to GlobalGiving for making it possible to support children in Ukraine, and to every one of you who supports this project. Thank you for standing with us - we're moving forward together.

Links:

• Linkedin