Fundraising by Operazione Colomba

I am returning to Ukraine. I don't know how many times I have repeated this sentence over the past 3 years.

At the beginning of the war, with Operation Dove, I spent several months in Lviv.

Now we live in Mykolaïv and Kherson, where the division passes between Ukrainian territories partly controlled by the Ukrainian government, partly occupied militarily by the Russian army.

My motivation for leaving the first time was not to leave people alone in the face of the demon of war; then, when these people became faces, stories and names intertwined with my life, I was no longer able to pretend that I did not know what they were facing.

Like Max from Mykolaïv, a guy in his early thirties who coordinates an Association that digs wells and potabilizes water because it is no longer drinkable in the city; or Serghey and friends from Kherson...

When I think back to the months spent in the basement in Mykolaïv, together with the small community that took us in, waiting for the rain of bombs to stop. If I think back to the year spent in Kherson, practically every minute under constant shelling; to the days spent moving rubble and sharing time with the people who chose to stay in their homes even under these conditions.

There, when I think back on all that, it is clear to me that in this country what is said must be proven with facts: if you say that your life is worth as much as theirs, you must then also share the risks and lack of future with them.

In the midst of the metal of bombs exploding and killing, in contact with those who lose the sense of living and the possibility of a future, we are moved to see that there are those who choose to continue living here, responding to violence with solidarity.

We try to stay close to these people, to support them concretely (in the distribution of humanitarian aid and in small reconstruction works), but above all to create and maintain spaces of human relations, creativity and hope.

"Show me something stronger than this hatred that freezes me,

show me how this love can set me free,

find a way to save me,

Sweet and strong as a spring."

Spring is coming

Thank you for your support!

P.S.

For donations by wire transfer:

IBAN: EN 04 X 03069 09606 100000008036

Made out to : Pope John XXIII Community Association - ONLUS Activities.

Specifying in the Cause: 25R006 + Op. Colomba