UKRAINE: Ukraine is not a “cause to defend”, but lives to support and to save
Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers
HRWF (08.03.2025) – Ukraine is not a “cause to defend”, but lives to support, declared Mgr Pascal Gollnisch, general director of L’Oeuvre d’Orient in a press release in late February.
L’Œuvre d’Orient, a French Catholic Humanitarian NGO, has intensified its action from February 2022 by launching an emergency plan to help Ukrainian families. Thanks to the generosity of its donors, nearly 200 projects have been funded, from scholarships to emergency care to the reconstruction of homes and schools.
L’Oeuvre d’Orient has been able to support its historical partners in Ukraine, in particular the Greek-Catholic Church, which mobilizes among the population without distinction of confession.
Some of the 200 humanitarian operations of L’Oeuvre d’Orient
- Kharkiv: Mobile clinics going to treat isolated people remaining in areas just behind the front line, often “unoccupied” areas. These are people who are too tired to go to the medical centers located further back.
- Krivyi Ryi: Construction of a bomb shelter for 120 people on parish land
- Lviv: Support for the reception center for mentally handicapped people at the heart of the campus of the Catholic University of Lviv.
- Cheptitsky: Hospital supports the opening of a branch in Ternopil. The Cheptitsky Hospital is very invested in the care of displaced people and welcomes 40% of displaced people into its staff.
- Chernihiv Region: Creation of crisis centers to provide humanitarian, but above all psychological and legal, aid to help the most vulnerable people escape dependency. 1,516 beneficiaries benefited from the project including 764 displaced people and 752 local residents.·
- Mykolayev: Opening of a small Caritas center in Mykolayev, a Black Sea town very affected by the war.
- Don Bosco Center, orphanage and professional training center.
- 80 displaced people being hosted by Sisters of the Holy Family although they are already struggling to cover their own needs, etc.
It is not a “cause to defend”, but lives to support, declared Mgr Pascal Gollnisch, general director of L’Oeuvre d’Orient in a press release end of February.
Assistance delayed is assistance denied. A number of well-established international institutions are slow to react to emergency situations because of bureaucracy, rigid and unsuitable procedures or ideological prejudices towards faith-based organisations despite their providing assistance regardless of the religious or social backgrounds of the victims. In existential situations, the motto should be efficiency first.
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