We provided aid to Ukrainians, both adults and children, through our clinics, socio-medical help points and psychotherapy services in Marghera, Brescia, Milan, Naples, Castel Volturno, Sassari and Polistena.

These people have fled war and found refuge in our country, where they have been taken in by friends, acquaintances and relatives in Italian communities.

We offered them:

• Medical check-ups and information on other facilities where they can go for specialist services.
• Help applying for temporarily present foreigner codes and enrolling in the national health service, which they must do in order to be assigned a GP.
• Information on local vaccination centres, where they can get Covid vaccines and ask for advice.
• Information for children on completing the necessary series of vaccines, in collaboration with the preventive medicine department at the local health authority.

Milan

Weekly food aid for Ukrainian families fleeing the war

Since mid-March, we have been working with Milan council to extend our existing food aid programme, “No one left behind”. We now deliver packages of food to Ukrainian families who have come to Italy fleeing the war in their country and been given a place to stay by friends, relatives and volunteers.

We take packages of basic goods – food and personal care products – to their doors every week.

Welcoming refugees in the district of Bovisa

From April to September 2022, we took part in a project to welcome Ukrainian refugees at Superstudio+.

With the aid of a group of EMERGENCY volunteers, our mixed staff – project leader, coordinators, logician and three cultural mediators – helped run the project, providing:

• Information, help and advice on official temporary protection and enrolment in the national health service.
• Cultural mediation and advice on schools for every family, including enrolling children in school and finding work for mothers.
• Courses of psychotherapy.
• Planning for activities and programmes to encourage inclusion.
• Logistical support at the centre.

Among the activities we ran over the last few months was an Italian language course, run by one of EMERGENCY’s cultural mediators and held every day at the centre for anyone interested.

With the project over, we began working with local associations to welcome to the centre any families who had not yet visited, and provided them with programmes for finding work and financial support.

Italian courses at Casa Emergency

From the beginning of April to the end of June 2022, we ran courses of basic Italian for Ukrainian refugees in Casa Emergency, to break down language barriers and encourage integration.

The classes were given by volunteer teachers from the non-profit organisation NoWalls.

 

Lampugnano: free swabs and socio-medical help for newly arrived Ukrainian refugees

A team from EMERGENCY spent March working in our mobile clinic, Articolo 10, at Lampugnano bus station, where they helped Ukrainian refugees newly arrived in Milan. They provided socio-medical help and rapid antigen tests for Covid.

Our nurse administered these tests with help from the Civil Protection Department, while our cultural mediator and volunteers explained to the refugees what their first steps should be on arriving in the city, giving them directions and leaflets with everything they needed to know to access public services.

Our staff also gave them temporarily present foreigner codes, which anyone entitled to medicine and medical services, but not enrolled in the national health service, needs.

The project ended in March. It was carried out in collaboration with the Milan local health authority.