"Today, everyone is more motivated than ever. It is impossible to be unhelpful."
Volunteer Iryna is bringing smiles back to the faces of internally displaced children.
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Iryna, 23, is an experienced volunteer. Originally from Kharkiv, she travelled to Donetsk at the age of 17 to help evacuate children from frontline cities to Sloviansk. Afterwards, she decided to stay in the city and enrol in university.
"I was not attached to the city, I was not scared that the war was still going on in that region,” she says. “I just wanted to contribute. At that moment, I felt that I had to be in the East, because you could develop the country at any place within it."
On February 24, Irina was woken by explosions in nearby Kramatorsk. She immediately understood that the war had begun. The week before, she had had a disturbing premonition, and now knew that she needed to be where her help would be the most beneficial.
"Today, everyone is more motivated than ever,” says Iryna. “It is impossible to be unhelpful."
Iryna helped to evacuate families and children from some of the most dangerous areas. She worked around the clock to the sound of air raid sirens in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, helping people who were leaving their homes without any belongings, some wearing only bathrobes and slippers.

"It was difficult to look at the children in overcrowded train carriages,” says Iryna. “Just yesterday they had a happy childhood, but today they have lost everything, even their favourite toys."
In March, thanks to the support of UNICEF, Iryna and her team of volunteers from the Teplytsia NGO were able to provide high-quality humanitarian aid to internally displaced families. This included baby food, clothes, diapers and other basic hygiene items in short supply.
So far this year, the team has managed to provide humanitarian support to around 900 families from the East, including children with disabilities.
In April, with the situation in the East becoming increasingly tense, Iryna evacuated to the Lviv region. She knew she would be able to work more effectively in safety and was the last of the team to leave Sloviansk.

🏆 UNICEF Youth Award 🏆
Iryna Voronova, 23 years old
Sloviansk, Donetsk region
Nomination: Aid to IDPs
The essence of volunteering:
Providing humanitarian assistance to children and youth evacuated from the war in Sloviansk, organising activities for IDP children
Organisation: NGO ‘Teplytsia’
Today, even hundreds of kilometres away from home, Iryna and the other volunteers continue to provide humanitarian aid to people in the East every day. As part of the project ‘Together. Meeting point’, they also organise leisure activities for children who are temporarily living in the Drohobych community.
The team run excursions, mini-trips and masterclasses for children and teenagers from the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
"I want children to feel that we need them and that they are important to us, regardless of where they are from and where they are now,” says Iryna. “With every child's smile, I feel like I am alive."