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The Do It Together charity, a part of Metinvest Group's Saving Lives, has joined efforts with Masha Fund co-founded by Masha Efrosinina, a well-known Ukrainian TV host, to start cooperation on the Unbreakable Mom project.

The first phase of the initiative embrace over 140 Metinvest's female employees and their children affected by the war, as well as wives and children of the company's killed employees. They will attend a bespoke rehabilitation programme to stabilise their emotional state. The first three-week session began in the Carpathians on 17 November. Unbreakable Mum is the first joint project of Saving Lives and Masha Fund to help rehabilitate war-affected women and children. This is not the first psychological assistance project implemented by Metinvest during the war. Earlier, the company helped its displaced employees through rehabilitation and reintegration centres and purchased medicine.

Why is it important?

Since its inception, Saving Lives has been pursuing its key mission — helping Ukrainian civilians overcome difficulties, pain, and traumas of the war by engaging Metinvest's partners and businesses. The Group's employees living near the combat areas found themselves at the forefront of the war against the aggressor since its first days. Such cities as Mariupol and Avdiivka have been severely damaged as a result of hostilities, and other cities like Zaporizhia and Kryvyi Rih where Metinvest operates regularly come under enemy shelling. The war has been a stress and an extraordinary ordeal for dozens of thousands of Metinvest's employees who continue to support Ukraine and its economy, help the Armed Forces and local communities from their workplaces, and who joined the Armed Forces.

In these circumstances, Saving Lives decided to develop and implement a comprehensive programme for physical and psychological rehabilitation of civilians in the regions of Metinvest's presence, first of all, war veterans, their families, women, and children. The first area of focus of the new initiative is prostheses for war veterans. The second area is the cooperation with the Unbreakable Mum project devised to help improve their emotional wellbeing of the Group's employees and their children, as well as civilian women and children who had tough experiences of the war.

"Metinvest is a big family. The war has been a challenging test for our family, as many employees had to flee their homes because of the enemy shelling. Unfortunately, our family has more than 1,000 employees and their family members who have been killed or injured in the hostilities. We feel strongly about Mariupol and Avdiivka - the cities that have almost been destroyed to the ground by the aggressor. Today, our key humanitarian objective is to support and rehabilitate our employees working for the company; both the company and the country rely on them, and they are doing everything they can to bring our victory closer. We realise that we should start helping our employees and their children recover emotionally, as they have been mostly affected by the war," said Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov. "Masha Efrosinina and her Fund are an ideal and experienced partner for this initiative. I hope that Unbreakable Mom is just the first of many other projects that will help rehabilitate our employees, their families, and thousands of civilians from the most war-torn Ukrainian regions under the Saving Lives humanitarian initiative," he went on to say.

About the project

Masha Fund launched the Unbreakable Mum project in June 2022. Co-founded by Masha Efrosinina and Oksana Nechyporenko, the organisation is headed by Tetiana Muratkina. The project's mission is to help the emotional wellbeing of women and children affected by the war. Its programme was specifically developed by specialists in psychotherapy and post-traumatic syndromes. Participants and their children undergo intensive sessions with such specialists in the Carpathians during three weeks. Those who need more therapy can enjoy three-month online psychological support and online counselling.

"The war destroys not only our power grids or homes. It destroys our lives, it destroys Ukrainians from the inside. We have already faced a big issue - psychological and physical traumas in women. Hundreds of thousands Ukrainian women have been affected by the war. Masha Fund takes the most-affected women under its wing," says the Fund's co-founder Masha Efrosinina. "We have already helped thousands of people! However, the number of women suffering from traumatic experiences is growing every day. Therefore, it is very important that large charities, foundations, and businesses join our project. Together we can do more! And I'm happy to announce the opening of the first session of Unbreakable Mum together with the Do it Together Foundation, which is part of the Metinvest Group's Saving Lives humanitarian initiative. Together we help women recover so that we can rebuild Ukraine.

The programme schedule is very tight: group and individual sessions, art therapy, body therapy, etc. Over 80 psychologists are engaged. The goal of the Unbreakable Mum programme is to prevent the development of PTSD and improve the psychological and emotional wellbeing by way of overcoming traumatic experiences, mastering the art of self-regulation, developing successful coping strategies, building the ability to adapt and fulfil their potential, networking, enhancing social activity, improving family relations and inter-personal skills.

Who are the organisers?

RAZEM DAMY RADĘ – DO IT TOGETHER Foundation is a part of Saving Lives humanitarian project launched by Metinvest Group in coordination with the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation in early days of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine. The initiative has been launched to provide ongoing assistance to Ukraine, which includes food products and essentials. For this purpose, it has arranged two hubs in Poland that collect, sort and prepare bulk cargoes for shipment. In coordination with the national authorities, they are delivered to cities and areas where this support is most needed. The project has expanded its assistance, starting to support medical institutions. Saving Lives project has started helping employees affected by the war: war veterans, members of their families and children.

Masha Fund has been established to tackle any form of violence and support the charity activity across Ukraine in general. The founders of the Foundation are Masha Efrosinina who is an actress, TV host, the Honorary Ambassador of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Ukraine (responsible for the issues promoting gender equality and fighting gender-based violence), as well as Oksana Nechyporenko, Coordinator of the Ukrainian Anti-Crisis Centre in Warsaw. Unbreakable Mum programme has become the flagship project rolled out by Masha Fund. Every day the organisation receives hundreds of applications from women in need for help. Nearly 60% of them have survived the occupation or blockade or experienced traumatic events and conditions in the areas torn by war, with 25% of them having witnessed the violence. In 2022, over 1,000 women and children have been the patients of the rehabilitation centre run by Masha Fund project. The plan is to double the number of programme participants in 2023. For more information about Unbreakable Mum project, go to https://mashafund.org.ua/projects/nezlamna-mama/.