Saving Lives has experience and infrastructure expertise in organising rehabilitation and medical centres and implementing psychological and social assistance initiatives. Metinvest will help to equip and furnish the centre, as well as hire psychologists and staff.
“Our task as a socially responsible company is to systematically help Ukrainians to overcome the hardships and pain caused by the war. Together with its partners, Saving Lives is already developing rehabilitation and prosthetics for the military and civilians, as well as psychological rehabilitation for women and children. It is time to set up centres in the cities and towns where Metinvest operates to help civilians recover and re-integrate into society. Our partner in this project, the UN Global Compact in Ukraine, has extensive experience in this area. We hope that together we can minimise the damage to the mental health of Ukrainians in order to help society recover from the war as soon as possible,” said Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest Group.
The centre in Zaporizhzhia will be a continuation of the Mental Help project launched by the UN Global Compact in Ukraine. It is an online platform that provides professional psychological assistance to Ukrainians. This initiative will go offline for the first time in Zaporizhzhia.
The UN Global Compact in Ukraine will develop the concept and programmes of psychological assistance, train the centre’s psychologists and personnel, and organise its work.
“The UN Global Compact in Ukraine and Saving Lives have a common goal to make psychological help available to every Ukrainian. We really appreciate that we have found a partner that shares our values and desire to move the project forward and believes in the importance of this initiative, even in the face of uncertainty. Mental Help is developing rapidly and is entering the offline environment for the first time. Zaporizhzhia is a major hub for people who have been impacted by the war. That is why my team and I have chosen this location to open our first community centre. We are confident that with the foundation, we will be able to provide even more quality assistance to those who need it most,” said Tatiana Sakharuk, Chief Executive Director of the UN Global Compact in Ukraine.
Zaporizhzhia Regional Council is interested in overcoming the trauma of war among the population of the region and numerous IDPs, and will help with allocating premises for the centre.
“As a person who has not left Zaporizhzhia since the outbreak of the full-scale invasion, I fully appreciate that revitalisation, mental health and psychological rehabilitation will be the leading areas, and maximum resources should be allocated to them. As such, I am extremely grateful for such a timely and useful initiative by the UN Global Compact in Ukraine and Metinvest, a socially responsible business, and for the opportunity for Zaporizhzhia Regional Council to support this important cause. For our part, we are committed to dealing with all the necessary technical and organisational issues,” said Olena Zhuk, Сhairperson of Zaporizhzhia Regional Council.
The Saving Lives initiative was created by Metinvest Group in coordination with the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the first year of the war, almost 500,000 people received EUR8.4 million in assistance through the project. Ukrainians have received more than 4,000 tonnes of foodstuffs and hygiene products, and hospitals medicines, consumables and equipment worth more than EUR246,000. More than 200 companies from around the world have joined the project as donors. The initiative is supported by 400 volunteers and 10 foundations and non-governmental organisations. Saving Lives’ main areas of activity include prosthetics and rehabilitation of the military and civilians, as well as psychological recovery of women and children.
The UN Global Compact in Ukraine is the Ukrainian network of the world’s largest community of responsible businesses. This special initiative of the UN Secretary-General is a call to companies to align their operations and strategies with the Sustainable Development Goals and the 10 principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. The organisation has 21,000 participants in 162 countries, and the Ukrainian network has 118 participants. Metinvest Group joined the UN Global Compact in 2010.