Vasyl Artemovych is a disabled person of the 1st group, he sees almost nothing. In his hometown of Luhansk, he felt everything by touch and knew the exact number of steps to his favorite park, pharmacy, and hospital. But 7 years ago, on August 5, 2014, he fled from Luhansk. He left his home without any hope of a quick return, left and learned to live in a new place, got used to local streets, to a new apartment.
Initially, Mr. Vasyl lived in Pavlohrad for a year. In November 2015, he moved to a modular town in Nikopol and then settled in a dormitory. But in February 2021 this dormitory was decommissioned. And again, it was the uncertainty and anticipation of the need to move to a new place, because in 5 years the apartment in the dormitory has already become something very similar to home.
After learning from Olena Pazenko, a monitor at the Dnipro office of the CF “Right to Protection” (R2P), about the possibility of relocating to Kamyanske, where the Ukrainian Social Investment Fund and local authorities were renovating a house into comfortable apartments for internally displaced persons, Vasyl Artemovych hoped that this might become a new home for him.
Thanks to Yevhen Romaniy, the director of the Municipal Enterprise “City Housing and Technical Inspection” of the Nikopol City Council, who provided the transport, Vasyl Artemovych, and 3 other IDPs were transported to Kamyanske to see the apartment: for him, it was unbelievable that a new house might be available somewhere.
The process of moving to Kamyanske was quite long, preceded by the months of waiting, but fortunately, everything is over. Ahead is a long life in a new apartment.
Olena Sukha, a monitor of the R2P, who accompanied Mr. Vasyl to Kamyanske, says:
«The Kamyanske community is an example of caring and humane treatment of people. On the first day, as soon as Vasyl Artemovych received the keys to the one-room apartment, he was visited by the social workers of the Kamyanske Territorial Center for Social Services. From their first steps in the new community people felt like at home here.»
Mr. Vasyl believes in God. In his words of gratitude, he always repeats that the monitors of the Dnieper office CF “Right to Protection” (R2P) are his guardian angels, who helped him in the difficult times: redirected to the UNHCR humanitarian aid, sent warm clothes by mail in the winter, and when he was left homeless, he was assisted in moving to Kamyanske, where he found his new home and people with whom he felt confident and comfortable.
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