August 26 – September 2, 2023

Fastiv, 27.08-02.09.23

Praised be Jesus Christ!

We are starting the school year and understand that it will be difficult in view of the war. At our school, the Catholic School of St. Martin de Porres, children from forcibly displaced families, children with special educational needs, and children of our Defenders study. Last year, the students of our school spent more than 200 hours in the shelter, if you think about it, that’s more than a month. We hope that this year will be different. We tried our best to make the shelter as “friendly” and safe as possible for children. We pray for our teachers and educators, for whom this is also a difficult task and challenge.

We are trying to support children in Kherson region, Kharkiv region and Kyiv region. These days we donated 550 school sets, thanks to Charitables Freta. Charitables foundation, which collected part of the funds at the fair in Warsaw, at the Dominican priory in the Freta Street. We bought the second part of the school sets with donations from the community of lay Dominicans from Zwolle. Thanks to mr. Peter and mr. Frans for their companionship and support.

This week, we sent 600 parcels of targeted aid to various cities and towns of Ukraine for forcibly displaced people and families in difficult circumstances. We help our military wherever they protect us: we give them tourniquets, canned meat, medical drugs etc.

This week, we provided 1,557 basic food kits (13,500 kg of humanitarian aid). Daily challenges are sometimes overwhelming, but we do not stop. Thank you for every kind word, prayer and donation!

With prayers

Fr. Mykhailo Romaniv OP