Shelter For Ukraine

Dearest Friends,

Firstly, we all want to say a huge heartfelt thank you for all the help raising awareness for this project and of course for the money you’ve donated.

As our Givealittle campaign nears it’s end date, we wanted to give a last big update as to what has happened since this all started and where we’re going from here.

The project is really moving now but it has been a real roller-coaster up to now. Europe has been in turmoil and the war and Covid has affected everyone and everything, but we are keeping our heads high and soldiering on.

We’ve been liaising with the police and their special unit (set up for Refugees escaping the war), a local ministry, who have been organising outings for the kids, and an NGO in Bratislava and all have given us amazing support and advice.

The initial need for accommodation in the short-term has been really well catered for locally, so everything that we are doing here will be about long-term accommodation and the development of an education space for the kids. The local education system cannot cope with the influx of students and, having younger children, it is preventing mothers from working as there are no free day-cares available. All the feedback that we are getting from the community here has shown us the biggest need at the moment is to create a space for these children; so that will be our main focus going forward.

As soon as the facilities are to the point where we can organise it, our friends involved with Clowns without borders will be coming to do workshops at the TMI, bringing some fun to those dealing with a very difficult time.

Some of the mums will be running the creche and pre-school, taking it in turns to look after each other’s kids.

As far as the build goes we have been installing the steel ring beam in the school and the floors will be completed next week. The first of the upstairs bedrooms are being built today and all the windows (kindly donated by Altaterra - a European based window manufacturer, and their “WeCare” initiative) are due to arrive on Monday.

We have been in contact with some of the major suppliers of materials in Europe and they have been very helpful and donated or given us discounts off some of the building supplies. We are now looking at other avenues to increase the budget and hopefully that will speed up our goal of achieving the money needed to complete the project.

After the amazing response from the Givealittle campaign we managed to reach the half-way target for the first phase. Although the campaign date is due to end, we will be continuing on with the build and have set up a donate button on our website, so people can donate directly. We will also be posting updates, pictures and videos onto the website, so if you would like to follow along on the journey, please do so on there.

We cannot thank you enough Aotearoa. There is still a long way to go, but what you have done and what you have helped us achieve will make a massive difference to the lives of people who really need our help.

For now, much love,

From all of us here at the TMI and Shelter For Ukraine.