A humanitarian team from Vancouver Island has returned from Ukraine after its fifth mission to the war-torn country. There the team delivered on numerous projects, all made possible by generous donors here at home. In a country being torn apart by four long years of war, every day at 9 a.m. residents come to a halt as time almost stands still. It’s a pause for one minute of silence to pay homage to those soldiers that have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Bob Beckett is with Vancouver Island Supports Ukraine (VISU) and was on the trip to the eastern European country. “Now, more than ever, we need to help the Ukrainian people,” said Beckett. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the VISU team has been working with four separate communities and two hospitals, supplying them with humanitarian aid. In a children’s hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, VISU donated $50,000 to purchase the necessary equipment to establish a blood bank. The regional hospital conducts more than 5,000 blood transfusions every year, predominantly for children batting pediatric cancer. Oleg Atamaniuk is the lead surgeon of the hospital and says the need for the blood bank is immense. “Chemotherapy kills the blood and we need the blood to save the lives of our children,” said Atamaniuk. In the city of Olyka, where Russia’s attacks on the power grid have been relentless, VISU helped purchase a large diesel generator to power two schools, as well as a small kindergarten. Beckett says some requests for aid that the team received were small, such as folding chairs or computers for communities. Up to 80 per cent of municipal budgets in Ukraine are being put towards the war effort, so many of those purchases can’t be made by the communities themselves. On the medical side, the team was able to donate two specialized tourniquet sets to a military hospital. One will stay in that hospital to be used during operations and rehabilitation work, while the other will be pushed forward to be used on the front lines. In another hospital, eye examination equipment was purchased. And the City of Langford donated $5,000 for one community’s STEAM program that teaches children to use and embrace technology. For the country’s smallest citizens, there were four special donations of $1,000 each to be put towards a project or outing for children who have lost a parent during the war. “We had a donor wanting to give some money towards the children of Ukraine,” said Beckett. “It is to give them an opportunity to just get away from the war and do something that they can enjoy themselves for a brief opportunity.”
