November 2022: old and new projects
Despite the cold almost winter weather, blackouts and communication problems, “B50 Reconstruction” volunteers never stopped going to Moshchun, where they traditionally cleared the rubble, restored damaged roofs, gained new experience in dismantling a frame house, brought furniture from caring people for the residents of the village, who were previously helped with the delivery of a modular house.
Right here, in Moshchun, B50 community started building a volunteer warehouse!
We are creating a separate place for storing volunteer tools and equipment, because all our buckets, shovels, wheelbarrows, perforators, jackhammers, drills and other helpers no longer fit in the home of local activist Valentina.
In a separate warehouse, the B50 inventory will be stored in the winter and conveniently handed out to volunteer teams.
In November, B50 volunteers had a somewhat unusual but long-awaited experience – helping the Best Friends animal shelter in the village of Fasova near Makariv, which survived the occupation.
The Best Friends shelter has been rescuing animals since 2014, cats, dogs, and horses live here. In the first months of the full-scale invasion, the territory of the shelter and the village were carpet bombed. Unfortunately, not all animals were saved. But now there is an opportunity to equip comfortable conditions for wintering – spacious aviaries, with heat and light and a special place for medical procedures.
Our team dismantled the old iron animal cages so that the shelter could build cool insulated enclosures in their place. B50 activists also made the animals happy with their gifts – they bought and brought animal feed and many other necessary things for the residents of the shelter.
During November, “B50 Production” female volunteers produced 3,880 trench candles (which is 500 kg of paraffin)!!! And for the entire time of work – about 14,400 pieces!
Candles were sent to hotspots all over the country. We no longer remember the names of the units and divisions, there is only one common request – “the guys need it badly …” In addition to candles, in each parcel there are goodies for the military (coffee, tea, cigarettes, vitamins, etc.), which we managed to collect, in particular, thanks to two projects from “B50 Production”: “Hanging coffee” and “Smoke in the right place”. The projects work according to the principle of “suspended goods”: drink a cup of coffee – buy a coffee stick for the guy/girl thanks to whom you are alive, bought a pack of cigarettes – buy a pack for a military man who will smoke “in the right place.”
In November, a conference of the Volunteer Institute Project was held with the support of USAID and other similar structures, the purpose of which is to provide basic knowledge, tools and share experience in the field of work on attracting grant funds.
The application of the B50 fund was selected to participate in the conference among many others, and this testifies to the excellent result of our joint work, interest in it and high evaluation of its effectiveness. These three days enriched B50 activists with theoretical knowledge of fundraising work, new experiences, connections and partnerships. There were also many practical tasks and, most importantly, communication with experts and colleagues at the conference.
Another cool event took place in November: B50 launched their own YouTube channel! It already has a video about the repair of the bomb shelter in the “Kozachok” kindergarten in Bucha and a report from a trip to the “Best Friends” animal shelter. So we invite everyone to visit us, subscribe, watch videos, like and share your thoughts, impressions, and maybe recommendations in the comments!
https://www.youtube.com/…/UC5i453d3YrBcWCoCd5ay1Qw/videos