Care home staff are helping a Lymington-based charity maintain a lifeline for elderly, disabled and injured people who face the most extreme hardship and danger in war-torn Ukraine.
New Forest for Ukraine (NFFU), set up and run by volunteers in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion, delivers tons of humanitarian aid for displaced families, mothers, children, the elderly and vulnerable in Ukraine every month amid a growing, increasingly desperate need. NFFU is an all-volunteer charity which runs on donations received from the public. It does not receive any government or DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) funding.
Among donors who have come forward to lend support are three Colten Care homes, two in the New Forest and one in Longham near Bournemouth, and the provider’s Ringwood head office and warehouse.
Colten Care is actively recycling surplus and unwanted items from older people’s care by sending to NFFU direct. Supporters are also encouraging families who want to, to donate too.
The items, which are not part of NHS provision, are gathered at Colten Care’s Ringwood warehouse and then offered to NFFU.
Photographs from an elderly people’s shelter in the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, close to the Russian border, show donated bed rails and overbed tables now in use once again in a former factory dormitory which has been turned, through local action, into a centre for the elderly and disabled.
Other items donated from Colten Care homes and sent to Ukraine include walking frames, crutches, shower chairs, clothes, bedding, medical equipment, hygiene and sanitary supplies and unopened nutrition drinks and supplements.
They are among thousands of aid supplies, including food, hygiene and medical first-aid items, gathered and shipped by NFFU with thanks to donors in Hampshire, Dorset and as far afield as Birmingham, Cardiff and Eastbourne.
A quarter of Ukraine’s 39 million population is aged over 60. Aid agencies say older people are disproportionately affected by the war.
Older people are often the last to leave frontline territories for a number of reasons and in areas such as the Kharkiv region, which borders Russia, there is an especially acute need due to depleted healthcare facilities and growing numbers of displaced people with older people, many suffering from dementia or PTSD, being separated from families and friends.
According to the UN, people aged over 60 accounted for nearly half of civilian deaths near the front in 2024.
And the most recent figures indicate the number of internally displaced people across Ukraine has risen steeply, from a previously reported 3.7 million to now close to five million.
Estimates indicate injuries from the war have led to more than 75,000 people becoming amputees.
“The Ukrainian people need our help now more than ever,” said Mandy Haynes, lead trustee for NFFU. “With usual facilities increasingly out of action, individual Ukrainians are setting up makeshift shelters for elderly people as well as children and families. They are doing their best to care for people with all kinds of complex conditions including dementia and amputations while most – including the carers – suffer from PTSD and other trauma caused by the conflict in Ukraine.”
One Kharkiv facility receiving NFFU and Colten support is a care shelter called the Big Family or Velyka Rodyna, run by charity Through The War which was set up by Olga Kleytman, an architect. The shelter cares for more than 50 elderly people with a small team of dedicated volunteers. They work from a former factory dormitory, trying to adapt it to provide care facilities while coping with bombing and making use of what in the UK we would call a domestic kitchen to prepare and provide food.
Seeing images of donated items in use at the shelter, including a homeless, bedbound person holding a Colten bedrail and another using an overbed table, have been poignant and emotive for Colten Care staff.
The three homes that repurpose and donate items are Linden House in Lymington, Kingfishers in New Milton and Fernhill in Longham.
It was former Linden House Home Manager Lorraine Bell, now managing Fernhill, who was the initial driving force behind the homes’ involvement.
Lorraine said: “When I was at Linden House, there were two Ukrainians in our team. They told me about their husbands fighting in the war and the plight of their families, friends and other people they knew in their country, from children all the way up to people aged 90 living with dementia. When they were speaking on the phone, they could hear bombs going off in the background. I always felt for them. We got talking about what we could do here to help those left with nothing because of the war.”
Lorraine has a connection with NFFU through volunteer Sandra Quinn, and with the support of Linden House and the other homes, the pair began to arrange regular collections of mobility equipment, clothes and other surplus items that could be repurposed for Ukrainian shelters and hospitals.
The Colten Group’s warehouse team in Ringwood, including Matty Davitt, Driver and Operator, now gather and take the items to the NFFU sorting hub in Lymington.
As with all donations to NFFU, the Colten donations are sorted, prepared and packed by NFFU volunteers into huge pallet boxes, wrapped and loaded onto lorries for the overground journey to Ukraine.
Mandy said: “Our volunteers do a great deal of collecting, sorting and palleting of a wide range of donations provided from the New Forest and beyond. Elsewhere this would be a commercial logistics operation but we don’t have the normal commercial machinery. We are doing this all by hand and those familiar with logistics comment on how efficiently we work. We’re also often in effect recycling and shipping boxloads of items that would otherwise go to landfill and taking them to hospitals, care homes and shelters right across Ukraine. We have around 25 pick-up points across the New Forest from where we take donations to the Lymington sorting hub to begin the process of getting them ready for transport to Ukraine to specially vetted NGOs and people on the ground who give us assurance of delivery. So we know where what we send is going and that it is reaching people who need it.”
NFFU has sent over 550 metric tonnes of aid to Ukraine since 2022 from its base in Lymington. Since the beginning of May it has sent three articulated lorries carrying a total of more than 22 metric tonnes. Each one is packed with 52 huge pallet boxes of medical supplies, generators, clothing, bedding, non-perishable food, hygiene and sanitary supplies and other requested aid.
While the bulk is much needed aid for families and individuals in distress, the lorries also carried a large volume of pet carriers, food and treatments. These assist with animal rescue and support as much-loved pets often end up displaced, lost or having lost their owners as casualties of the continuing attacks by Russia.
Transport is arranged in association with Ferndown-based haulage firm Logiscom.
Reflecting on the work of NFFU and the contribution of donors such as Colten Care, Mandy said: “We are a small organisation trying to make a big impact. Colten Care is one of our supporters helping us to take a lead with the care industry but we are keen to engage with others in the sector too. Our message is to please do what you can to donate. We only work directly with people in Ukraine who tell us what their needs are. They’ve told us that the most vital humanitarian aid we can provide is food, hygiene and medical first-aid supplies. There is great demand for walking frames, shower chairs, bed rails, walkers and unused nutrition drinks. One way or another, these items have a use.”
Lorraine said seeing the images of people in the Kharkiv shelter resting on and using Colten equipment was powerful. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “These are human beings, just like us, who deserve to be valued and respected, but are caught up in the most devastating and extreme circumstances. Seeing our donations in situ was a moving, poignant moment.”
A poem expressing gratitude to NFFU has been written by shelter volunteers in Kharkiv and translated from Ukrainian. It reads:
“When the war closed the sky, and the flames reached the houses,
They came to us not only with words, but with a sincere heart, like a brother.
From New Forest For Ukraine, distant friends, but closer than many.
They bring hope here, where everything was lost long ago.
They send warmth to every family,
Medicines for mothers and babies,
Support, for those who have lost their loved ones,
And faith, for those who are no longer happy.
Because true friends do not ask,
Whether it is profitable to help.
They appeared in the worst days,
To extend a hand to you.
And we hold on, thanks to them,
Because we know: in this darkness
There are bright people, there is a family,
Which will not abandon you in trouble.
With sincere gratitude, your team of volunteers. Please bless Ukraine.”
For more information on volunteering or donating money or goods to New Forest for Ukraine, visit www.newforestforukraine.org.
