Club of Catholic Intelligentsia and Ukraine
Club of Catholic Intelligentsia is an organization founded in 1956. It gathers around 2000 members whose objective is to serve the common good.
KIK’s initiatives, apart from intellectual and spiritual formation, are pursued in 4 main areas: Humanitarian and development aid and other aid activities (projects funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs or by American USAID carried out in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine; humanitarian aid at the Polish-Belarusian border);Education and upbringing (leading peer groups based on scouting-like rules for over 700 children and teenagers);Social initiatives in Poland (cooperation with minorities in Poland, creation of the first in Poland support helpline for people abused in Church); Development of the civil society in Eastern Europe (support for independent school system in Belarus, care for
KIK’s engagement in helping Ukraine
Since 2014 KIK has been especially involved in helping the Ukrainian society. During the so-called Revolution of Dignity (2014) KIK delivered specialist equipment for field hospital, Personal Protective Equipment and financial support, as well as the support for the injured who were transported to Polish hospitals. For 8 years KIK had been regularly organizing therapeutic and recreation camps for children from the families who had suffered from the war in the Eastern Ukraine. Several hundred children and teenagers benefited from those. KIK was also leading the projects supporting young Ukrainian artists, organized specialist workshops for educators working with refugee families in Ukraine. Ukrainian hospitals were equipped and the doctors were trained also on the KIK’s initiative.
Thanks to all those activities KIK has a broad base of verified partners in the territory of Ukraine in the fields of education, culture and empowering the civil society. We have been cooperating with Ukrainian Ministry of National Defense, local governments and hospitals’ management representatives. The members of KIK were frequently rewarded for their involvement by the representatives of Ukraine’s and Poland’s authorities.
Support after the outbreak of war in Ukraine
Thanks to the long-term experience in managing aid activities that are based on verified needs and having at our disposal all the contacts, motivated volunteers and partners with broad experience in multiple fields, we were able to bring help from the very beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine. We focus on the particular fields that are in our opinion not comprehensively cared for. The three of them are: humanitarian and medical care in the territory of Ukraine; providing the basic needs for the refugees in the territory of Poland; organizing long-term help structures.
Help needed
Each of our aid initiatives needs funding.
- Hostel for the refugees without Ukrainian passports: for covering costs of accommodation, food, laundry etc.
- Evacuation of children with disabilities: for transport, costs of administrative support of evacuated groups.
- Afternoon care for children: for materials, psychologists’ salaries.
- Humanitarian aid: for transport of aid measures and the purchase of specialist equipment (i.e. Ultrasound Machines for field hospitals).
- Ukrainian school: for hiring teachers, the purchase of teaching aids, printing/purchasing the handbooks, maintenance of the building.
- Long-term model for the support of refugees: for hiring experts who would pilot the model solutions.
Our organization needs funds for developing our infrastructure. Currently on the territory of Poland there are 2 millions of Ukrainians, many of which will stay in Poland. Thinking about effective help we need to take the perspective of a few years. It requires a gradual replacement of voluntary actions with the work of hired staff as well as coordinators and experts. The means given to KIK will be used on developing our ability to help effectively in a broad long-term perspective (salary of coordinators is crucial) and on specific aid activities (transport of goods, medical supplies etc.).
