Play facility for Ukrainian children

I'm part of a tight-knit group of self-funded volunteers who have come together to help Ukrainians in pligh. Brave team members do frontline evacuations while I'm setting up small play and art therapy projects in areas where there are displaced people and villages badly damaged in the Russian occupation.

Please will you help me set up a modest facility for children in a village where the people are poor and now left with next to nothing. We're helping the villagers transform a bomb-proof basement into a play space for children during the cold winter months. If you're interested to learn more about this story, please keep reading...

Yesterday I met Yevgeni and Lada who live in a modest house in a small peaceful village 20km north west of Kyiv. They are fulltime carers for 21 children, 17 of whom live with them. Several have severe learning difficulties, some with autism.

Russian troops, tanks and artillery invaded their village on 25 February and stayed there for 16 days. There were 74 tanks and many other large weapons in and around their village which was used as a strategic military base from which the Russian army fired missiles into the Kyiv region. The shuddering noise was constant through day and night. Can you imagine how frightening, confusing and traumatising this would be to a child? Many families had their homes destroyed while other houses were used by the soldiers who trashed them and stole their possessions. The villagers were not allowed to leave and families had to move in with neighbours. 42 adults and children sheltered in a stark, dark concrete basement. I've seen all this with my own eyes and spoken to people about their experiences and the situation.

During their occupation, the Russians destroyed the medical centre and the school which educated 240 children aged 6 – 17. The villagers had to stay inside, there was no schooling or recreation for the kids. Since the village was liberated Lada has been organising activities for 30 - 40 children every day in the park. In winter it will get very cold and outdoor play will no longer be possible. The children will have only online schooling. Many are suffering stress and trauma from the fear, constant noise and highly volatile and unsettling experience of seeing their lives thrown over. Without a safe place to play and learn with their friends, there will be no socialisation and their trauma symptoms will worsen.

Yevgeni and Lada want to make an indoor play and recreation area for the children to get together for weekly Saturday clubs and other activities. The underground bunker which was used as a shelter has planning permission from the local authority to be converted. There are two rooms of rough concrete and cement block walls with crude lighting and one pipe for water. It needs to be cleared, the ceiling needs to be lined and the floors laid. It will need damp proofing, a simple lighting system and a bio-toilet.

Local villagers have many practical skills but they could do with some extra hands for basic labour so we're mustering strong and fit volunteers to labour alongside them. We've raised enough to start the initial work on this but need more for building materials and specialist skills they might need to hire.

Once the building is fit for purpose we'll furnish it with play and learning equipment. I'll be making patterned wallpaper with the kids so they can decorate the interior. Not only is this is a sustainable project which will have a real and immediate impact on the morale and wellbeing of this community but it will also serve as a more habitable basement bunker in case there are more bombings in the area.

Thank you for any help you can offer. The best thing you can do is make a small donation and then share this as widely as possible including with any contacts you have in the press.

PS My heart melted when I saw the faces of these two beautiful boys in the photo above as we handed them a little knitted teddy bear and a football each. The little one insisted on playing catch and throw with me for ages and was definitely one to watch as a potential world-class cricket fielder!