"Palyanitsa" centre for humanitarian aid and logistics invites you to our new section. Here we tell the stories of displaced people, who were forced to leave their homes because of russian aggression. Here you’ll find the stories of our fellow Ukrainians, who turned to our centre for help.

Meet Iryna Fokina, a mother of three. But now she has five kids.

Hi! I’m Iryna, my family and I became displaced from our hometown Lysychansk, in the Luhansk region. 

I want to tell you a little about myself and my family.

It’s me, Iryna, my husband Maksym, our three children, the eldest Zahar, Yevhen and our baby, Anastasia, our pearl.

Zahar has been a very difficult child for me, twice he almost lost his life. In December 2012, when he was nearly three years old, he received 1st,  2nd, and 3rd degree burns. The doctors told us he wouldn’t make it, he wouldn’t come out of shock for so long, but he recovered, thank God. He is 12 years old now, he is doing well and even plays sports with his brother.

In 2014, life just started to get on track, then the first war started. Maksym went to defend our motherland, Ukraine. He was in the city of Shchastya (translator’s comment: Ukrainian for happiness) for about half a year. While he was there, half of our house was destroyed, but we didn't leave, we stayed with his parents. Of course, I didn't tell this to my husband, I didn’t want him to worry, I knew it was already difficult enough for him. He came home in Autumn 2014 but was taken straight to the hospital with a micro stroke. His entire right side was paralysed but thank God, it was only temporary, and Maksym recovered quickly with no complications. He was undergoing treatment for a very long time.

When Maksym "got back on his feet", he transferred to the police force, as a convoy-driver and I too got a job in sales, we needed to rebuild our home.

In 2018, we had our little girl Anastasia, I didn't spend much time on maternity leave, because we were still fixing the inside of the house and the older kids were already at school. Everything we earned we spent on our children, their education and repairing our home, Maksym and I saved as much as we could and didn’t spend much on ourselves.

2022 came, finally everything was going really well for us. I was working, my husband was working, the children were studying, our baby Anastasia started kindergarten, the house renovation was finally completed, and we were planning to finally take a holiday to the sea.

And so... on February 23rd we celebrated our son's birthday, and in the morning rockets started to explode above our heads. It was just terrifying. There was no way I was going to let Maksim join the army again, I couldn't handle this alone with three children, and of course, there was his health. For a while we stayed at home, everyone thought it would be over quickly. But, no, it was only getting stronger, we had to move down to the basement. And we sat there for a month. And the bombing was getting harder and closer. The food was running out. There was humanitarian aid, the children didn’t see the daylight, we were scared to let them out of the basement, because shrapnel were landing everywhere. So one day, when a projectile landed somewhere nearby and I thought our house collapsed, we couldn’t take it anymore. There was an evacuation corridor arranged, we quickly took what we could, got into the car to leave, and suddenly there were the neighbor's children, two girls, Kateryna and Elizaveta. Their mother ended up in a mental hospital, she couldn't take what was going on, their father disappeared, they lived with the grandparents. They asked us to take them with us. Without any hesitation we did, because it was hell there.

When we were driving, we didn't even know the roads, we were just following the evacuation route, the column was going so fast, we could barely keep up in our old Zhiguli car. I thought we were going to crash, but the volunteers did a great job, they pressed us from the front and the back so that we didn't fall behind. Then all of a sudden, we come under fire. It was so scary. I no longer had just three children, but five, and I was frightened for each of them. Then one of our tyres got punctured with a shrapnel. The volunteers who were driving behind us, all men, ran out of their car and basically lifted our car with their hands. They changed the wheel in about five minutes, and we were back on our way. When we came upon some town, we got lost and had to use the navigator. It was such a pity that we never got a chance to even thank the volunteers and the men who changed our tire.

We finally arrived in Dnipro and started looking for a place to stay. Everything was so expensive, and when landlords heard that we had five children, they wouldn’t rent anything to us, usually saying: "five children, no, that's too many, they could paint on walls or something". 

When I took the girls from another family, I did not think that there could be “too many of us”, or that someone could “damage the walls in a rental property”. I took the children out of that hell. In fact, the children are very well behaved, well-mannered, I have not had one issue with them.

Finally, a church accepted us and let us stay for 3 days. We were there for 5 days because we could not find an alternative place to stay. While I was looking for housing, my husband returned to work.

We found housing in Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region. Very nice people, volunteer Ksusha found us a place to stay. When we arrived, there were several volunteers, who helped us not only with housing, but also furniture, food, and other things. People are very kind in Kamianske. I am incredibly grateful to all the volunteers who always help us with humanitarian aid, food, and other items.

The volunteers at the "Palyanytsia" Community Center frequently help us. They fully prepared my children for school with all the school supplies, even summer clothes, they also helped us with food and even some sweets, which I can’t always afford to buy myself.

My husband works, but his salary is not enough to support 7 people and pay the rent, and his job is 60 km from home.

I am incredibly grateful to all the volunteers who help the displaced people, without them it would be near impossible.

I thought that the scariest part was behind us, but now I have even more fear, as we have nowhere to return to.