Sasha’s story is a poignant example of resilience in the face of adversity. Having lived through the harrowing experiences of escaping the conflict in Luhansk, where he and his family endured the harsh realities of life under occupation, losing his family, and facing significant trauma, his journey to recovery has been both challenging and inspiring.

Sasha is a 16-year-old boy from Sieverodonetsk. Before the war, he lived a happy life with his family and friends, dreaming of a career in car engineering while riding his BMX bike. After the war started, his family got into a car accident, and he saw his mother and brother burn to death in front of his eyes. Sasha was left with serious injuries and spent seven months in a hospital in occupied Luhansk. This period was critical for his physical healing but also marked by emotional turmoil. Following his hospital stay, he was placed under a guardian who exploited him for labour, adding another layer of difficulty to his young life.

Fortunately, Sasha maintained contact with his aunt, who legally should have been his guardian. As she managed to escape the occupied territory, she worked tirelessly to reunite with him. In December 2023, with the help of the Ukrainian authorities and organizations like OFF, Sasha was successfully returned to her care in Ukraine.

Since then, the support he has received has been multifaceted, focusing on both psychological healing and practical assistance. OFF has provided Sasha with psychological support to help him process his trauma and rediscover joy in life. Thanks to the Director of OFF Ukraine, Maksym Lebid, found an internship opportunity for Sasha at a local car repair shop in Zhytomyr. This has allowed him to gain valuable skills while fostering a sense of community and belonging. The shop owners, inspired by his story, have become mentors in his journey, further enhancing his confidence and passion.

Sasha’s dream of becoming a car repairer is rooted in his love for mechanics and engineering, reflecting his childhood memories of riding BMX with his brother. The connections he has with his past and his aspirations for the future have been significant motivators for his healing process.

As a special gesture, the OFF team organized a birthday present for Sasha in the form of a brand-new BMX bike. He also had the surprise to hear the support of 2 of the biggest names in BMX riding in the world, Colin Varanyak (2023 X Games Gold medalist) and Ryan Williams (aka RWilly, 7-time X Games Gold medalist), wishing him strength on this special birthday. This extraordinary moment brought Sasha immense joy and reinforced the idea that dreams are attainable, no matter the obstacles one faces.

Now, as Sasha rides his new bike with friends in the quieter parks of Zhytomyr, he is not just moving forward physically but also emotionally, finding healing and hope in bike trick. His story is a testament to the power of support, community, and the enduring spirit of a young boy determined to rebuild his life and dreams.

The work done those past 5 months with pharmaceutical companies, logistics firms, international donors and Ukrainian healthcare authorities is finally paying off concretely: this week we have been able to deliver the first shipment of cancer drugs to #Ukraine!
1 ton of highly critical oncology medicines, kindly donated by the European Medicines Agency travelled from Vilnius, Lithuania to the Poland-Ukraine border, where Mariam Lambert took over. And another 1 ton of further medical supplies donated by the Japan – The Government of Japan, the Embassy of Ukraine in Japan and UNOPS were made available to us by Myron TSYUPA from the Humanitarian Hub Zhytomyr charity.
Thanks to the logistics by Davaj Ukraine and the safe passage organised by Maryan Zablotskyy, the Ukrainian parliament and the Border Security, we have been able to deliver these oncology preparations and other medicine directly to patients from hospitals in #Chernihiv, #Kharkiv and #Kramatorsk.
Over the past few months, together with Valeri Zub, the Chief of the Ukrainian Oncology Committee, we have been preparing this continuous support to the 28 oncology centers across Ukraine. We are very proud to have successfully launched this new project providing direct support to those indirect victims of the war, who suffer from the impact of the invasion on the supply chain of their life-saving medicines.

In February 2022 our NGO has decided to refocus all its activities to humanitarian support to Ukraine, as one of our main drivers is to fight for fairness. The call out from President Zelensky about the “totally unjust war” resonates in our heads so much that we had to put all our efforts to help the civilians and hospitals in need during these tragic times.
The national Ukrainian TV channel “Apostrophe TV” has followed our NGO during the delivery of medical supplies in Ukraine. It shows the result of all the work done upfront, from the international donations to the logistics across Europe and the collaboration with the local governors and the hospitals doctors. Thanks to this large network, we are able to make regular deliveries of medical supplies all over Ukraine possible, always personally, hand-in-hand, to ensure that the requested (and needed) items reach the right beneficiaries.
Through our visits of hospitals across the country, we can definitely confirm President Zelenskyy’s fear that the health system is having difficulties to maintain a minimum service because of the lack of medical supplies and disturbed supply chains. The international support raising across Europe and beyond is overwhelming, and we are happy to help connecting the dots so that donations are benefiting the ones in need most critically.

During our NGO’s mission in Ukraine beginning of May 2022, we had the amazing privilege and honour to be with two journalists who covered our whole mission from Kyiv to Odessa via Kharkiv, Mikolaivv and Zaporizhzhia, in a great TV report for the Ukrainian national broadcaster Inter TV-Channel.

As Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine enters its third month, we tend to forget about a very important group of invisible heroes : our dearest journalists covering the conflict!Several journalists -foreign and Ukrainian- have been killed since February 24, and dozens more have been wounded. The national union of journalists in Ukraine reports that as many as 20 reporters could have been killed so far, a figure that includes victims whose circumstance of the deaths have not yet been determined. During this trip I got to know Alexandr Vasilchenko, one of the most authentic human beings and an amazing journalist. Not only is he covering the war with great professionalism but also with his heart and soul.

This video is one part of the whole documentary on our NGO’s humanitarian initiatives in Ukraine, especially focusing on our meeting with the Ukrainian refugees from Azovstal who had just escaped from Mariupol and arrived in Zaporizhzhia a few days before. Our co-founder Mariam Lambert further explains the role of our NGO, not only in Ukraine but also in the Netherlands.

In parallel of this documentary, our NGO has been able to discuss with the refugees, listen to their traumatic experience and provide them with first-necessity supplies such as sanitary items, clean clothes and dumb phones, for them to be able to reassure their family members of their liberation.

But some of the people we met still can’t enjoy this new freedom completely, like Tania, who shared with us that her grand-mother is insisted for her to be part of the selected few to see the sun light again, while she would remain in the underground tunnels of the Azovstal, saying that she preferred to ensure her grand-daughter be guaranteed a free future instead.

As Alexandr Vasilchenko, those documentaries are essential because “the world needs to know what is really happening on the field”.