Over the past year, at least 7,000 people in Kyiv and another 3,000 in three frontline cities received food and hygiene kits through a joint project by the Italian government and the NGO Community of Sant’Egidio.
This was announced at a briefing by representatives of the Community of Sant’Egidio.
According to participants, the project involved centralized distribution in Kyiv and decentralized delivery in three frontline regions of food, clothing, and hygiene items to the most vulnerable groups.
Project coordinator Vita Zinevych stated that over 15 months, about 7,000 people in Kyiv received aid, including around 35,000 food kits and 15,000 other relief packages. In three frontline cities — in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Kharkiv regions — another 15,000 food kits and 12,000 packages with clothing and hygiene supplies were distributed, reaching over 3,000 people.
"Humanitarian assistance was provided to those affected by the crisis in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, meeting the basic needs of internally displaced persons and the most vulnerable groups in Kyiv, as well as in Nikopol, Kramatorsk, and Zlatopol," Zinevych noted.
Project administrator Liudmyla Kharchenko emphasized that the Community of Sant’Egidio, which has been operating in Ukraine as a volunteer initiative since the 1990s, has helped at least 25,000 people so far and attracted around 200 new volunteers in the past year.
"People continue arriving in Kyiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk — where the Community remains active — after being forced to leave their homes due to the fighting. Many of these people not only integrate into new communities but also become active volunteers themselves. This demonstrates their remarkable resilience and desire to help others by turning their own hardship into a source of support," Kharchenko said.
The project, aimed at supporting those affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion, ran from February 2024 to May 2025 with support from the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) as part of the “Ukraine — Aid, Integration, Development” initiative.
