Smotrych is a small village in western Ukraine, a country that has been at war since 2014 with the fight for Donbass and then the conflict with Russia a year ago now.

"Before the war, Smotrych was a poor village where Ukrainians and Poles lived.

The situation in the country has been difficult for several years and the current conflict with Russia is destroying everything in the country.

The economic situation of the population has deteriorated further. Men have gone to fight, some women with children have fled abroad.

With the new offensives, refugees from eastern Ukraine continue to arrive in Smotrych - they are now living in buildings that were uninhabited, some staying there for some time before moving to Poland."

However, the Daughters of Charity continue to go into the villages to help the people and care for the sick, disabled and elderly in the House of Mercy (currently 30 people)

For the children who remained in Smotrych, they are working to give them a 'normal' childhood in the shadow of war. 

"We have organised holidays and a short retreat. With the intensification of the attacks and the fear of bombs, they are coming to the daycare less when they are supposed to enjoy life and have fun like all the other children in the world."

Project: Purchase of basic goods to get through the new cold snap in this time of war.

"Everyone is under stress and uncertainty.  The loss of life is draining the morale of Ukrainians. People are even poorer, prices in the shops are going up while people have the same pensions as before the war. It is more and more difficult to access basic goods."

The sisters therefore appeal to the Rosalie Projects to buy medicines and hygiene articles, food but also winter clothes, warm blankets and quilts as well as winter fuel for the refugees, torches, candles (to go down into the cellar during air raid alerts). 

"We try to buy the products on the market as much as possible to save money. When it is too expensive or difficult to get supplies, our sisters in Poland send us the products we need by humanitarian transport."

The beneficiaries are elderly and single people living in Smotrych, mothers or grandparents raising children alone, refugees passing through and needing shelter for a night or several days... (in total about 40 people), all of whom are victims of the war.

A big thank you for your support 

"Many of you are suffering in prison, in the slums, on a hospital bed, in the poorest neighbourhoods, abandoned, isolated, and sometimes even suffering from a war, which you did not seek, which is imposed on you."

Pope Francis