Image: EVA MANHART (APA)
On Wednesday in Vienna, Red Cross Secretary General Michael Opriesnig spoke of an operation that had “never happened before” about the aid campaign “Neighbours in Need” – “Help for Ukraine”: Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine on April 24, February 2022, Austrians donated 56 million euros. Since the federal government doubled all donations with funds from the Foreign Disaster Fund by Easter 2022, the total is 98 million euros.
The size and duration are unique, said Opriesnig in the balance sheet press conference of the neighbor-in-need campaign “Help for the Ukraine”. This started on the day of the attack. 59 aid projects in Ukraine and neighboring countries are currently being funded.
“We need staying power”
The foreign aid general secretary of Caritas Austria, Andreas Knapp, was also enthusiastic about the willingness of the Austrians to donate. “But we need the famous staying power,” he said. The help must continue. “If we stop now, a lot would collapse.”
According to Knapp, the situation is particularly dramatic for two “vulnerable groups”: the elderly and children. Some people in need of care are still in contested areas, and mobile nurses are taking care of them as far as possible. A number of older people – “in our country that would be the sprightly pensioner generation” – are alone, “the sons in the war, the daughters with their children fled abroad”. Their gardens, which were also used for self-sufficiency, could often no longer be maintained.
fuel for the winter
For children, rooms have been created in a safe environment “where children can be children,” says Knapp. Here, particularly strong traumatizations would also be recognized as early as possible.
The donations from the Austrians could also provide fuel, especially for the winter, Knapp said, referring to mined forests that would make it impossible for people to collect wood. A focus is also placed on repairing roofs and windows.
“We know numbers, data and facts. But when you talk to the people on site and hear the fate of the individual, the emotional horror comes,” said Knapp. Nevertheless, the resilience of the Ukrainians is “enormous”.
Neighbor in Need was founded in 1992 on the initiative of the ORF together with Caritas and the Red Cross to help the needy population in former Yugoslavia. Today, eight organizations work together, in addition to Caritas and the Red Cross, the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund, Care, Diakonie, Hilfswerk International, Malteser and Volkshilfe.
Source: Nachrichten
