Marina Bidnar, the Lead with Dreams Together NGO, always has a smile.  Not on this night. “When we heard a drone descending (18th July), I ran outside of our home. Seconds later, I grabbed the children and rushed to our basement. The explosions came one after another. The children cried. I couldn’t stop shaking. It felt like the start of the full-scale war all over again.

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Later we learned the military enlistment office had been targeted, just 200 meters from our Dreams Together centre. Panic then hit me. That centre is our heart. It’s where we serve displaced people, it is our second home.

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A volunteer who lives nearby checked the building that night: all 24 windows were shattered and protective tiling had been blasted off the outside walls.

We knew the local authorities couldn’t help as they were focused on searching and repairing  homes. But we couldn’t let our center and its aid contents perish from the wind and rain. So we launched an urgent local fundraiser, and the response overwhelmed us. People from across Ukraine sent what they could. That next day, together with nearby displaced families, we boarded up the windows. The center had the chance to get warm again.

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This attack didn’t destroy us. It just made us stronger. And we showed that when using waterproof paint to cover exposed mortar with a mural.

Now, we’re back to welcoming new displaced families daily. They need everything. Food, clothes, bedding, and hygiene supplies.

One surprise: we discovered an old basement beneath the center. It’s unusable now, but we can dream of turning it into a shelter.  A safe place for those who have nowhere else to go. We will need help to do it.

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How do we keep going? Faith in our mission, and what we see in the eyes of those we serve. Their “thank yous’,their tears and smiles, they all give us strength. My husband and sons are always by my side. As a family we are in this together.

There’s no one else helping the displaced in our area. That’s why we can’t stop. And we won’t.”

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Within days Marina and her team were operating again.  A wonderful mural of the Doves of Peace over the Ukrainian Flag now adorns a wall stripped of its tiles.

Dream Together receives New Forest Aid on a regular basis.  Sadly it is never enough to cover the newly displaced families they are required to help.  If you can get what they most urgently ask for to us, we will get it to them.