Birmingham Citadel
Salvation Army
Transforming lives
How can you help in Ukraine
03.03.2022
As the conflict in Ukraine continues, The Salvation Army already is still providing food, shelter, clothing, prayers and hope.
We’re asking people to continue to donate today to help us give practical support and care for people affected by conflict.
The Salvation Army has programmes and personnel in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Romania, Moldova and other European countries who were able to offer practical assistance as soon as the situation escalated. Some rushed to the border of Ukraine to hand out urgent provisions while others made arrangements to offer support to people and families displaced by the violence.
In particular, The Salvation’s Army’s response includes:
- Romania has formed an emergency team, filled the car with essential items travelled to the border to offer support.
- Moldova will provide free assistance to refugees from Ukraine including temporary accommodation, hot meals and drinks, access to Wi-Fi and other necessary items.
- Poland is preparing relief parcels for Ukrainian people coming into the country.
- Slovakia is preparing to offer accommodation, material needs and emotional support.
- Czech Republic is already home to some 200,000 Ukrainians and anticipates many more will will seek help from family and friends already in the country. The Salvation Army has available capacity in its residential centres and stands ready to provide support.
- The Salvation Army in Ukraine reports that officers are sleeping in shelters alongside the communities they serve, but are doing their best to offer hope and support.
Donations to support Salvation Army relief work
The current focus for cash donations is to support Salvation Army work in Ukraine and surrounding countries. To donate to help our work on the ground to support those affected by the crisis, there are two options:
1) The International Projects Office has set up an appeal page and the donation link is https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk?form=Ukrainecrisisappeal
2) JustGiving – for people raising funds locally (rather than one off donations) for the Ukraine crisis through a fundraising event or challenge, use https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/TheSalvationArmyResponseinUkraine
This Ukraine Just Giving Campaign page has been set up to enable you to collect donations directly for any work you are doing to support this appeal.
Please donate via the central appeals
Please note, it is not possible to send donations direct to Ukraine or surrounding territories. Donations that are sent outside of our territory’s Ukraine crisis appeal cannot be included in any emergency project and put additional administrative pressure on the territories responding to the crisis.
Offers of blankets, clothing or other items from the public
We can only accept cash donations for international emergency appeals and relief work. If people ask if you would accept donated blankets, food and other physical times for Ukraine, please politely decline and explain that giving money is the best way people can help.
In most cases, donating items slows down our international relief work as items need to be sorted, cleaned and transported. Spending money on delivering items also leaves less money to help those in immediate need.
In contrast, money donated to The Salvation Army stays within our Movement. We use our international network to make sure help is given to the people who need our support. We have Salvation Army officers and Salvationist volunteers already on hand in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. We are working with them and our colleagues at our international headquarters in London to make sure donations are used properly.
Offers of practical support within The Salvation Army
To avoid inundating Salvation Army personnel serving communities affected by the Ukraine crisis, International Headquarters has respectfully asked that all internal offers of practical assistance – such as driving items and volunteers teams to the borders to offer help – are channelled through the Chief Secretary’s Office (via ChiefSecretary@salvationarmy.org.uk).
From here they will be passed on to the Europe zonal office at IHQ who are aware of all the different territorial responses. This will ensure a greater level of transparency and accountability and stream-line practical and financial support to colleagues who are responding to incredibly difficult situations.
Praying for Ukraine
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all who are impacted by the crisis. As you will appreciate, this is a very sensitive situation and is a significant burden for all our personnel in the Eastern Europe Territory and the Russia Command. Please keep them in your prayers.
Our international leader of The Salvation Army, General Brian Peddle, has called for renewed prayer over the conflict between Russia and Ukraine – see details online here.