SEED Project Sprouts Opportunity For Families In Ukraine

Humantiarian Aid and Relief

Fighting To Exist

Even though the war in Eastern Ukraine has slowed down, it continues to destroy the lives of hundreds of people and forces locals to fight for their existence every day. 

Kristina, a member of the community in Ukraine says, “When the war stated my husband lost his job. I was pregnant at the time so we could not buy anything for labour and delivery.” 

“The hardest part is to realise that you have no way out and nowhere to go. The people here are on the brink of survival and this is not mere words, it’s a reality,” shares Nastya, another member of the community. 

Olena says, “We live right on the conflict borderline and there is no transport available to or from our village. It’s 6km to the nearest small shop and 25km to the nearest grocery store.” 

“The village looks very depressing with many homes completely destroyed. You can hardly find any intact houses here and the ones that have survived have been repeatedly restored”, says Galina who is the Director of the SEED Project in Ukraine. “Not many people remained here but the ones who did are families with children and even with small babies.” 

The only way people can survive here is because of their vegetable gardens and livestock.  

“There are no ways to make money here so I survive on vegetables from my garden and milk from a couple of goats that they have”, Nadiya says. 

“For the last five years we live on only what we harvest from our vegetable garden because there are no jobs in the area”, says another member of the community. 

Svitalana tells us that, “Without our vegetable gardens we simply would not survive.” 

The SEED Project

From the first days of the war in Ukraine, CBN and Orphan’s Promise have been helping people effected by the armed conflict. The SEED Project has been the most successful among different implemented programmes.  

Over the last three years, people living in conflicted areas have been able to receive various seeds for planting. 

“Thank you for bringing us these seeds. They are a very big help for us because seeds are very expensive,” comments a member of the community. 

“They are like a gift of life for us. Seeds are very expensive, and we don’t have money to buy them,” shares another member of the village. 

In 2019, thanks to this project, a large displaced family received funding to start a small family business through well-equipped vegetable greenhouses.  

 Stephania, a member of the family displaced from Donetsk says. “We water these vegetables together as a family and then, when the time came, harvested them together.” 

“We had a really good harvest. There was enough for our family to eat and also to sell some vegetables at the market, and we all praise God for that,” says Denis who is a father. 

Olena, Denis’s wife says, “We canned plenty of preserves for the winter, tomatoes and cucumbers. We’ll have enough food for the whole winter.” 

“Thanks to you we now have food, finances, clothes to wear and other things. Thank you so much,” says Ilya, Denis and Olena’s son.  

Sharing The Good News

Over 6,000 families in 60 of the frontline settlements were able to plant and harvest crops this year, thanks to the SEED Project. For the neediest of families, chickens and potatoes for planting were provided aswell.  

Nastya adds, “Thank you for the seeds you have given us, we had a very good harvest this year. We have beetroots and carrots and tomatoes. A very good harvest.” 

“Everything we planted brought fruit, praise God. Now we can eat it, preserve some for the winter and thank the Lord,” says another member of the community.  

“Today we have food to eat and food to can for later. We have food to survive on and get needed vitamins from,” adds Kristina.  

Our harvest is also great. Over 5,000 people heard the gospel and over 1500 of them prayed the prayer of repentance, and 12 were baptised,” says Galina. “We praise God for every person who took part in this project.”  

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