Donetsk, June 6, 2024
Groups of volunteer repairmen from the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry have started traveling to towns and cities in the Donbas: Donetsk, Volnovakha, Gorlovka, Lysychansk, Khartsyzk, and Dokuchaievsk. Previously, volunteers from the Russian Orthodox Church were only engaged in repairing homes in Mariupol. Volunteers are repairing private homes of the elderly, disabled, and large families—those who cannot repair their homes themselves. They are replacing wiring, repairing roofs, carrying out finishing work, and installing ramps, reports Patriarchia.ru.
“Our hotline receives calls for help from various cities in the conflict zone. Our main volunteer teams are working in Mariupol, but more and more requests are coming from other cities, and we are responding to them,” says Alexander Kozlenko, the coordinator of the volunteer builders of the Synodal Department for Charity. “Right now, more than 150 homes are waiting their turn. They are inhabited by people with disabilities, the elderly. They live with broken roofs and shattered windows. But there are not enough volunteers. We are asking for help from anyone willing to do a good deed.”
Since March 2023, the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, has been organizing the recruitment of volunteer repairmen to restore homes of peaceful residents in the conflict zone. By June 4, 2024, volunteers had repaired 228 homes in Mariupol. More than 860 volunteer builders have already traveled to the conflict zone. Groups of volunteers depart every week, and each shift lasts seven days. Those who wish to volunteer in repairing homes in the conflict zone first fill out a form on a website, or call the hotline.
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