The horrors inflicted on the people of Ukraine in the Russian invasion include not only the deaths of loved ones, some of them children, but the loss of their homes, perhaps forever. Imagine the level of fear and stress that arises when you must suddenly pack a suitcase, grab your kids and flee your homeland. The United Nations warns that some 5 million people could leave Ukraine because of the invasion, creating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Watching this mass trauma unfold, we wonder what we can do — beyond paying more for gasoline as a price for the sanctions against the Putin regime. We have some suggestions.
First, a warning from John C. Wobensmith, Maryland’s secretary of state: “If you choose to give to help relieve the pain and suffering in Ukraine, please be vigilant and donate wisely to reputable, well-established charities.”
In Baltimore are the headquarters or regional offices of several longstanding, reputable international relief organizations. They are either engaged directly with the crisis in Eastern Europe, providing funds for partner organizations or advocating for more support of refugee resettlement in the U.S.
From its office on West Lexington Street, Catholic Relief Services (crs.org) is sending staff and resources to support Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of Catholic relief organizations at work with partners in Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Poland. Caritas partners have established reception centers at railroad stations, and they are providing food, shelter, counseling services and additional transportation for displaced families.
“It’s alarming to see the scale of the suffering caused by the war in Ukraine,” said Sean Callahan, Catholic Relief’s president and CEO. “More than 2 million refugees have fled the country in less than two weeks, almost all of them women and children.”
With an office on North Howard Street, the International Rescue Committee (rescue.org) has for years been supporting refugees from several countries. It has added Ukraine to the list. On its website, the IRC says a donation “will help us provide food, medical care and emergency support services to refugee families in countries like Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.” The IRC notes that some 1.5 million Ukrainians, two-thirds of them women and children, already had been displaced within the country because of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.
Located at Baltimore and Charles Streets, World Relief (worldrelief.org) responds around the globe to disasters, famine, poverty and refugee crises, working with thousands of churches in more than 100 countries. It is accepting donations for fleeing Ukrainians and plans to fund its partners in the region. “We are also ready to resettle Ukrainian refugees whenever we have the opportunity,” the organization states on its website, “and are providing assistance to those already in the U.S. who are desperately seeking help for their families.”
There are numerous other ways to help through established organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders (doctorswithoutborders.org), Save The Children (savethechildren.org) and Project Hope (projecthope.org).
Razom for Ukraine (razomforukraine.org), established in New York in 2014 to support Ukrainian democracy, says it is now “focused on purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items. We have a large procurement team of volunteers that tracks down and purchases supplies and a logistics team that then gets them to Ukraine.”
On the advocacy front is Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (lirs.org). It has been supporting refugees and asylum-seekers since 1939, the last time the world saw a flood of European families fleeing a brutal invading army. LIRS wants to see, as all Americans should, stronger government support of Ukrainian refugees. It has urged the Biden administration to step up after the previous administration lowered the annual ceiling for general refugee admissions to an appallingly low level.
“The Biden administration’s increase of the [annual] refugee ceiling to 125,000, coupled with low refugee arrivals to date, means there is ample room to welcome Ukrainians in search of safety,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, LIRS president and CEO. “The administration must rebuild and streamline the refugee program’s processing capacity to prepare for this new humanitarian emergency.”
We agree. In the meantime, if your heart aches, consider a donation to an organization providing comfort and care for the women and children fleeing Vladimir Putin’s senseless war on Ukraine.