ZORYA VILLAGE, DONETSK REGION, UKRAINE – Svitlana, a single mother of three, is another among the many women who have received psychological support and other assistance from the UNFPA-deployed mobile teams.

The on-going armed conflict in the east of Ukraine is badly exacerbating the everyday challenges for many people, especially for single women who need to provide for their families. © Maks Levin/UNFPA Ukraine

‘Every single day I struggle for a better life for my children. Sometimes I lie in bed and cry for hours while they are sleeping,’ Svitlana told the mobile team members who visited her at her home in Zorya village, where she lives with her children after moving from the conflict-affected Konstantinovka region. With no one else to rely on, Svitlana says her neighbours looked after her children while she was delivering her youngest son in a maternity clinic.  

Psychologists on the mobile team counselled Svitlana about how to cope with stressful conditions. They gave her information on what social assistance she is eligible for and contact information for centres she can reach out to for additional help. Members of the mobile team told Svitlana to call them whenever she needs psychological support, assuring her that they are ready to return upon her request.

In the five months that they have been in operation, UNFPA mobile teams have provided help to more than 4,200 women from at-risk groups, including survivors of gender-based violence, in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia. The mobile teams are able to reach remote villages and communities where people have never before had the opportunity to receive such assistance.