12/26/2022
We at the World Rehabilitation Fund, as so many Americans, were profoundly moved by the presentation given by the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky to the United States Congress.
The Fund has been supportive in the past by assisting Ukrainians with disabilities and helping rehabilitation professionals improve their skills to better serve these individuals. Latest estimates according to UNHCR is that nearly 7,000 civilians have been killed in the war and over 10.5 thousand civilians have been injured. US military observers estimate that some 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded. Many of these Ukrainians are in need of rehabilitation services such as the services that WRF has helped to provide throughout our history.
Prompted by the call for American help by President Zelensky, WRF is launching an aggressive effort to meet the needs of Ukrainian war victims. We are calling on the public to help us fund this effort.
We have been active in Ukraine as part of a consortium of interested humanitarian assistance organizations since 2015 just after the earlier insurrection in Eastern Ukraine was provoked by Russia.
Through our efforts many rehabilitation service providers were trained to rehabilitate injured Ukrainians utilizing more up-to-date rehabilitation strategies than they had been able to provide prior.
As of now, WRF and its partners, are working with some 45 different rehabilitation centers throughout the Ukraine. The program is concentrating on providing artificial limbs for Ukrainians who suffered amputations as a result of the fighting. When the program started early in the current war, some 500 such individuals were identified by Ukrainian humanitarian assistance groups. This number is growing exponentially and the need for help is overwhelming the services currently available to help these people.
The initiative WRF is proposing to undertake is to
1. Continue training remotely rehabilitation service providers at the 45 centers identified.
2. Obtain and send components and supplies needed to provide remediation.
3. Initiate a train-the trainer component so that those providers who have been trained by the consortium can, in turn, recruit and train other Ukrainians to further assist in the provision of services
4. To develop other services aimed to help Ukrainians with disabilities such as training in daily living skills and assistance in helping them find and maintain employment so that they can be productive citizens and provide support for their families.
We hope that you can join us in this effort. Please donate to WRF. You may wish to earmark your donation to the Ukrainian Prosthetics Assistance Project.
