Partnering with Save Ukraine

By: James S. Gordon, MD

This time in Kyiv, Save Ukraine and its Director, Mykola Kuleba, and Project Manager Dmytro Filipenko are hosting me.

 At night, a bomb falls near my hotel.

During the day, we develop other potential partnerships. Here we are, in the morning, at the Taras Shevchenko National University, meeting with several of the deans, who are eager to send faculty members from the schools of Psychology, Social Work, and Social Rehabilitation to CMBM’s training.

In the afternoon, we meet with Katryna. A profile in courage, she survived the Russian occupation for two months in the basement of her now destroyed home in Mariupol, walking a daily 40-minute path through a minefield to collect water for her family. A former member of the Mariupol City Council and a leader of that city’s women’s rights movement, she is now bringing humanitarian support to others who have survived the tragedies of murdered family members and cities reduced to ruins.