Faringdon Rotarians in Oxfordshire have been supported by the club’s RotaKids and members of the new Global New Generation e-club to establish a new partnership with Kharkiv City Rotary in Ukraine.

Having been brought together through a few different connections, Kharkiv City Rotary shared some project ideas with Faringdon Rotary including a ‘Children of Heroes’ project to support young people whose parents have been killed or injured in the war.

The two clubs also worked together on the Friendship Box scheme which is being promoted across Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland.

The RotaKids in Faringdon packed 20 boxes filled with a selection of pens, pencils, books, toys and stickers, and the children wrote short messages to include in each box.

Ievgeniia Kopytsia is from Kharkiv, currently based in Oxford and a member of the new Global New Generation club. The children were keen to write messages in Ukrainian so Ievgeniia helped with the translations.

President of Faringdon Rotary, Karen Eveleigh said: “It was great to see how keen the RotaKids were to send gifts to children who they know are living in such a difficult situation.”

Once packed up, Ievgeniia worked with the Kharkiv Rotarians to arrange the delivery. In return, the Ukrainian Rotarians sent back a short video showing that the boxes had arrived safely and been distributed. The Ukrainian children had also made Motanka dolls for the Faringdon RotaKids which Ievgeniia presented a few weeks later.

Karen added: “The children really appreciated the gifts and have been able to pass on the stories of the magic of Motanka dolls to other club members who missed that evening meeting.

“Our club has supported youth education projects in different countries for many years. This is a great opportunity for us to continue with this focus and work with Rotarians in Kharkiv to support young people, whose lives are clearly affected by the Russian invasion.

“As Ievgeniia has explained, the children who have left Kharkiv for other regions and countries could be at quite an advantage when they return to their home city after the war, having been in safer environments and learning other languages.

“There is, therefore, huge scope for us to offer support for the children and young people who have stayed in Kharkiv city and Kharkiv region. We look forward to developing our partnership with Kharkiv City Rotarians.”