The war forced Olha from Kherson to Khmilnyk – a helping hand brought her from a collective site to a house with her own garden
The war forced Olha from Kherson to Khmilnyk – a helping hand brought her from a collective site to a house with her own garden
47-year-old Olha Kanonets from Liubymivka in the Kherson region still vividly recalls that day. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion and shattered life as she knew it, just as it was the case for millions of Ukrainian families.
“We woke up at 4 AM as our beds were shaking. The sky was shining red, because a military base 30 kilometres away had been hit by a missile. Already by 10 AM, tanks had entered our street. It was hard and scary. I didn’t know what to do. When the opportunity to leave arose, we took it,” she recalls.
Together with her husband and their two daughters, she fled her home and region in the search of safety. The journey took them to Khmilnik in the Vinnytsia region, where the family after failed attempts to find accommodation moved into a collective centre, set up in a former sanatorium.
At first, Olha thought that it would only be a short-term solution, hoping to be able to return home quickly.
“However, the more time passed, the more apparent it became, that the war would not end soon.”
While feeling safer and being grateful for the support, living in the collective site was challenging for Olha, who remembers not having a proper kitchen and being constantly surrounded by many people.
“The four of us stayed in one room, and at first it seemed like everything was good, because I was with my family. But I really missed to have my own space, a corner to collect my thoughts and compose myself to be able to support my children and to keep living.”
Olha and her family lived like this for a year, before they were enrolled in the Rental Market Initiative, which was launched by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in 2023 across eight regions in central and western Ukraine. Thanks to the financial support from donors including the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, the initiative aims to support internally displaced people to move out of collective sites and find alternative and more durable accommodation.
Together with partners, UNHCR provides families in collective sites with the necessary support which can include legal counseling and help to conclude rental agreements, improvement of living conditions in the new apartments and provision of cash assistance to cover several months of rent and utility fees. In addition, UNHCR helps facilitate access to job opportunities and re-skilling as a way to enable the families to become self-sufficient and continue paying the rent once the rental assistance from UNHCR ends.
For Olha and her family, the rental support from UNHCR, through its NGO partner Medair, meant that they could move into their own house.
“Of course we want to go back home, but we cannot right now as our village is still occupied. So, we are in good conditions here, and the most important thing is that I have a big garden, where I can go and find comfort,” says Olha.
She is also spending much time on building her own small business, which started as a bit of a coincidence. Olha enjoys sewing – and after she was able to loan an old sewing machine, she produced a bag for herself.
“I went to the city, carrying it, and people asked me where I bought it. On the first day, I already had two orders.”
Since then, she has participated in a training on entrepreneurship and project development, offered by UNHCR’s partners, and she is growing this business on the side, making some extra money to help provide for the family.
“We need the money, so I am working, but then in my free time, I make the bags. For me, it is also a way of coping with stress,” Olha explains.
So far, UNHCR’s Rental Market Initiative, with support from Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, has supported almost 2,100 families move out of collective sites and into alternative housing solutions.
