“It’s not work, it’s my way of life,” says Lesia Lytvynova, a cheerful young woman with bright brown eyes, who has spent most of last year helping refugees in the Humanitarian Aid Center at 9/11 Frolivska Street in Kyiv.
The woman is on a tough schedule. She spends more than 10 hours at the center every day. Her colleagues make notice of her hard work, and they are not the only ones. On Nov. 30, 2014 Lytvynova was recognized with “The Most Humane Volunteer” award by EuroMaidan SOS human rights group.
“Lesia knows everything,” says Yaryna Klos, a journalist and mother of two, a volunteer at the sorting center on Frolivska Street.
Indeed, Lytvynova seems to find time for everyone who calls the center for help.
“No one of the people who ended up here deserved that,” she says. “There shouldn’t be so many people who lost their loved ones and children who recognize the war planes by their sound,” Lytvynova explains.
She is convinced that what the war refugees need most is love, and someone to listen to them.
Since the aid center, where up to 40 volunteers work, has helped more than 10,000 refugees who came to Kyiv from the war zone in Ukraine’s east, and from occupied Crimea.
Before that she was an active supporter of the EuroMaidan Revolution. Even though she was pregnant at that time, she and her husband delivered over 200 tons of wood to the activists on Maidan Nezalezhnosti to be used for fires.
She didn’t stop helping after she gave birth to her fourth daughter in May, and turned into a volunteer for the refugees.
On Dec. 15 Lytvynova’s daughter, now seven months old, was sleeping in a car parked in the aid center, while her mother was helping a pregnant woman to pick a stroller among several that were donated to the center.
Lytvynova, 38, used to work as a filmmaker for Inter TV station. She admits she would like to make a film about everything she witnessed in the center, but doesn’t think it is possible.
“Every person here is so profound and interesting,” Lytvynova explains. “So I still can’t get the whole picture. That’s why I ‘killed’ a filmmaker in me and just live in this moment,” she said. However, when she tells any story it’s colorful and live – like a scene in a movie.
Lytvynova confesses that even though her volunteer work and four kids leave her with no free time, she can’t imagine her life in any other way.
“The center is my comfort zone, and I don’t want to get out of it,” she says.
Luckily, her family supports her a lot.
Her oldest daughters of 18 and 14 years help their mom at the center. During the times of the EuroMaidan Revolution, they have turned their apartment in a hospital for the protesters. Lytvynova recalls that sometimes their home was so crowded there was barely any space left for the family.
What brings Lytvynova in peace with her busy life is the joy of knowing that the refugees make a progress.
“When our refugees come here for the second time – not to ask for help, but rather to say thanks or tell of their success – it makes me happy,” Lytvynova says.
“Once a woman from Luhansk came here to get some help, but was willing to go back home. She was frightened and desperate and we had no psychologist around that day,” Lytvynova recalls. “So I tried to help her. She likes gardening and I convinced her that she would have better life here and could use my country house garden for her purposes. In some time she did go back to Luhansk – but only to pick up her seeds,” Lytvynova says.
Now the Luhansk woman is among the center’s volunteers. According to Lytvynova, at least half of the volunteers who show up at the center are refugees themselves.
She says after spending so much time with refugees many of them feel like a part of her own family.
“Once a young girl came to us with a cake. It was her birthday, but she had no one to celebrate it with, and wanted to share it with us,” Lytvynova says with a sad smile. “Now you understand that I can’t leave them.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]
