Všichni sledujeme situaci na Ukrajině, nabízíme postoje a informace z ymkařské rodiny.


Dear Friends,

the joy that we felt from our bronze medal at the Olympics last night was greatly dampened by the live news reports showing the violence on the Maidan – the Independence Square – in Kiev, which we watched in disbelief. We are very sorry that you are experiencing such hard times in your country at the moment, and that the freedom of speech and opinions – whatever they may be – something that we have cherished as a given for over twenty years now and that is one of the pillars of the YMCA – is being so brutally attacked. We admire your democratic spirit and your willingness to discuss those issues that you feel to be important; but it is difficult to discuss your views with weapons and violence, and every single life lost in such „discussions“ is a tragic loss not only for the families of the victims, but for democracy itself.

Our thoughts are with you, and we pray that freedom, justice, rationality and peace shall be victorious in your country.

In Prague, 19 February 2014

YMCA in the Czech Republic

Jaroslav Pechar, Chairman; Milada Pajgrtová, General Secretary

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Dear International YMCA Friends!

We really appreciate your warm words and moral support during this hard time in Ukraine! It was extremely important for us to get many letters of support from you! This armed conflict was very unexpected for us as at the beginning it was a peaceful demonstrations against a sudden reject of the president and government to sign an Agreement on Association with the European Union. After the violence against peaceful protestants, many thousands of people in Kiev and other cities of Ukraine went to the streets to oppose the regime that we had, corruption, for human rights and social values.

Last week the authorities started real war against the people of Ukraine! We never could imagine that in peaceful times so many people can be killed and so many people can be injured in three days! And this happened in the middle of Europe…! These days were so long to each of us… We actually started to understand more clearly the human values when you do not know what is going to be the next moment, who is going to be killed, attacked, injured… It is hard to explain in words the feelings that we had…

At the moment the situation has become quite stable in Kyiv, though we still have big tension and the cases of the violence and separation in the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine.

YMCA all over the World always was an organization that supports civil people during the wars, the one that gives to suffering people a hope. And at this moment of the crisis in Ukraine, when hundreds and thousands of civil people have been injured, we really need your support and help from the international partners!

We would like to ask for the financial support to those who were injured and for their families. There were around 100 people killed and more than 5 000 injured. We kindly ask you to support and help people who really need it.

Unfortunately we also had losts in the YMCA Ukraine. One of the volunteers of Rivne YMCA was killed by sniper on the 20th of February. His name was Oleksandr Hrapachenko, he was only 26 years old… The people knew him as positive, energetic, enthusiastic young man who was fond of scouting, tourism, alpinism. Another young man – YMCA scout leader, who was injured is Vladyslav Zubenko. This young person is from Kharkiv, he came to Maidan and got a shot from the police. He has injured lung, kidney and liver. Now he is in reanimation and he is in critical conditions. These are just two persons about whom we know. But still there are lots of people missing.

Referring to this situation we kindly ask you to organize a fundraising activities in your communities to donate money for the people, injured in Ukraine. Afterwards we will agree with you how they could be transferred to the YMCA account in Ukraine. We are in close cooperation with organizations, organizing help for the victims and we will transfer the money to them or to the families directly.

Please be sure that the spending of the money will be in a transparent way and we will send you the reports about how all these money were used. Thank you for your understanding and support!

On behalf of Ukraine YMCA,

24 February 2014

Orthodoz priest Zhabkovskiy, President of YMCA Ukraine;
Viktor Serbulov, General Secretary of YMCA Ukraine