“Every person is a story, and we try to ensure that every Ukrainian child’s story who we care for becomes a good story,” says Marta Levchenko, founder of the shelter and rehabilitation centre City of Goodness in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
As a teenager, Marta Levchenko volunteered with Roma children in Zakarpattia region and with women who had experienced domestic violence. Years later, in 2018, her foundation established the City of Goodness to help mothers escaping domestic violence or living in poverty and unable to provide for their children. The shelter provides not only temporary accommodation for those women and their children but also professional psychotherapy, medical care, education, professional training and assists with finding employment, so that these women could get back on their feet and start their lives anew with their children. The mission of the shelter is to help women so that they could keep their children and be able to care for and raise them well.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the City of Goodness has also opened its doors to the internally displaced from across Ukraine, including the territories occupied by the Russian Federation.
The Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal — a joint effort of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF) and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) — has recently provided a grant to the City of Goodness. The grant has helped provide shelter, food, and medicines to 400 people, including internally displaced women with children, the elderly, victims of domestic violence, and orphans from Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. The shelter has also taken in 35 homeless pets that have since become therapy animals to young residents of the City of Goodness.
Additionally, with the funds raised at a concert in Montreal for the City of Goodness, another grant was given to the shelter to help cover the construction of a centralized water and sewage system for their new building (hospice) as well as an elevator platform.
The City of Goodness is a shelter and rehabilitation center that sets a high standard and is a role model for other regions of Ukraine to follow. Managers from the social sector come to learn about the shelter’s broad spectrum of services provided under “one roof,” The organization’s all-encompassing procedures and management style have made it a success story for so many.
Last year, the City of Goodness received a medical license and became a robust ecosystem, employing psychologists and rehabilitation specialists. “Little Domna, who is being raised by her grandmother, could not sit up on her own. Recently, she stood on her own for the first time,” says Levchenko proudly. “Thanks to the donors, we were able to buy a leg implant for Domna.”
For her significant achievements in the charitable sector, Marta Levchenko was included in the Ukrainian Pravda 100 Power of Women, dedicated to women who are saving Ukraine now.
Your donations to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal support projects like the City of Goodness, they change lives of so many for the better, they provide safety, shelter and care – thank you!