When Undomesticated Isn’t a Choice
On 27 February 2022, people cross the border from Ukraine into Poland. © UNICEF /UNIAN
For many women, being “undomesticated” is not a choice. Every day as we dream of traveling, other women and children are being forced from their homes and countries due to abuse, war, or other disasters.
Ways to help around the world and in Ukraine now:
Humanity Now is an organization launched in 2016 by four women from North Carolina who wanted to offer direct help to refugees arriving in Greece. !00% of donated funds go directly to assistance, including essential needs like food, shelter, medical supplies, cleaning supplies, clothing, and diapers. When the founders travel to Greece to help, they use their own funds.
ShelterBox is an international disaster relief organization specializing in emergency shelter and aid needed to help families recover from climate disasters and conflict. Undomesticated’s Features Editor, Yi Shun Lai, is a Response Team member for ShelterBox. ShelterBox has deployed a team to Ukraine. They are also currently operational in Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, and other areas affected by conflict.
Women for Women International has been offering vital support and education to women survivors of war and conflict since 1993. They have helped more than 500,000 women “learn the skills they need to rebuild their families and communities,” and have operated in eight countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.
Madre is a women-led human rights organization established in 1983 after a group of “activists, poets, teachers, artists and health professionals” witnessed the destruction caused by the US-supported Contra War in Nicaragua. Since then, they have been working to end gender violence, advance climate justice, and build peace.
The International Rescue Committee responds to war, conflict, and natural disaster within 72-hours around the world. They help people stabilize, rebuild their lives, and often resettle in the United States.
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, has been helping children around the world for more than 80 years. They “deliver essentials that give every child an equitable chance in life: health care and immunizations, safe water and sanitation, nutrition, education, emergency relief and more.”
The Global Network of Women’s Shelters gives voice and organization to shelters for women and children worldwide.
The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization. They work in 80 countries to directly deliver food to those in need and also aid smallholder farms to prevent future food instability.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a “neutrial, impartial, and independent” organization that works in 90 countries to help people affected by conflict and armed violence and by promoting the laws that protect victims of war mandated by the Geneva Convention.
The International Medical Corps brings lifesaving treatment and medical supplies to communities experiencing conflict, disaster, and disease.
Humanity and Inclusion, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, responds to the world’s most pressing emergencies by supporting vulnerable populations and people with disabilities.
PEN International, launched in 1921 as an association of “poets, essayists and novelists” in London, is now a worldwide network with 100 centers that work to promote literature and ensure free speech. We include this organization because where speech and information are suppressed, conflict, disaster, and poverty are harder to address.
HIAS, or the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, was founded in 1881 to help Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Now it works around the world to protect refugees who have been forced to flee their homelands due to ethnic, religious, and sexual persecution.
World Central Kitchen, founded by Chef José Andrés and his wife Patricia after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, is now on the Ukraine/Poland border feeding hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, both in Ukraine and those fleeing the country.
Ukraine-based organizations that need your help
At last count, the United Nations reported that more than one million people are fleeing Ukraine. Tens of millions more are still there in harm’s way. Most of the above organizations are already aiding Ukrainians being affected by this war.
The Kyiv Independent, an independent English-language newspaper in Kyiv that has received generous donations from around the world, is directing viewers to a Gofundme that will help support other independent Ukrainian media that have not benefited from as much publicity, many of whom have had to relocate. The fundraiser “is aimed at helping media relocate, set-up back offices and continue their operations from neighboring countries.”
Sunflower of Peace is a Boston based non-profit founded in 2014 to provide medical assistance to Ukrainian orphans and internally displaced people, along with educational opportunities for Ukrainian genetics scientists. It’s currently raising funds for “first-aid backpacks, medicine, medical instruments, and other means of survival” that will be distributed to paramedics and doctors in areas affected by the crisis in Ukraine.
Voices of Children has been helping traumatized children in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine get psychological treatment and rehabilitation since 2015.