LVIV, April 20. 24 psychosocial support mobile teams start to work in Ukraine to provide social and psychological assistance to gender-based violence survivors and internally displaced persons who have fled war-torn zones. The mobile teams are launched by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, in coordination with the Office of Deputy Prime Minister of European and Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine. 

As part of its humanitarian response to the military invasion and the unprecedented humanitarian crisis, UNFPA has partnered with local authorities and implementing partners – NGO “Faith, Hope, Love”, Charity Foundation “Smile UA”, Youth Charitable Foundation “Initiative” and Charity Foundation “Butterfly" – to launch a network of mobile teams of psychosocial assistance. The uniqueness of a team's assistance is the mobility of service provision – specialists of the teams have the opportunity to go to hard-to-reach areas and provide services to persons who do not have access to facilities or are limited in movement for various reasons. Psychosocial assistance will be provided to both residents of local communities and internally displaced persons.

“For us at UNFPA, it is crucially important to continue providing assistance to gender-based violence survivors and to be where we are needed the most, especially in such difficult times for people and the whole country. Cases of domestic violence do not disappear during the war. Therefore, more services need to be provided, especially to those who have been forcibly relocated and need even more support,” said Mustafa Elkanzi, UNFPA Senior Emergency Coordinator in Ukraine.

Mobile teams will operate in 12 cities of Ukraine – Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Poltava, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Uzhhorod, Ternopil, Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk. There are 2 teams in each city. Each of the mobile teams has two specialists (psychologist and social worker) and a driver with a car. Mobile teams services are provided with the financial support of the governments of the UK, Canada and CERF (Central Emergency Response Fund).

Contacts of mobile teams can be found here: https://rozirvykolo.org/map-of-support/ 

The model of psychosocial mobile teams assistance was piloted by UNFPA jointly with its implementing partner “Ukrainian Public Health Foundation” in 2015, and successfully proven its efficiency in the east of Ukraine. Service mobility made it possible to reach out to many women who lived in settlements along the contact line and in hard-to-reach areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Later, mobile teams started service provision in other regions of Ukraine. From 2015 to the end of 2019, psychosocial assistance was provided to more than 60,000 women who survived violence.

Photos and videos about PSS mobile teams for usage. 

For reference:

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. UNFPA's mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA calls for the realization of reproductive rights for all and supports access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including voluntary family planning, quality maternal health care and comprehensive sexuality education.