Ukraine crisis – HIA hosts camps for 200 Ukrainian children

The Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HIA) has organised camps to host some 200 children traumatised by the war in neighbouring Ukraine in Budapest and in Somogy County’s Kastélyosdombó, in south-western Hungary, the charity said on Wednesday.

Children arriving from Bucha, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Donetsk, Kherson and the Rakhiv district will have the opportunity to participate in therapy workshops and group activities. Other programmes include arts and crafts workshops, sport activities, cycling tours, field trips, cruises on Lake Balaton, adventure park visits and Hungarian language classes.

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The charity programme has been organised in collaboration with Britain’s Christian Aid charity, the Bridge for Transcarpathia fund raising drive and E.ON Hungaria.

HIA has said it had managed Hungary’s largest ever humanitarian campaign for Ukraine and supported 250 refugee homes in Transcarpathia before that. It is providing humanitarian aid through its centres in Lviv and Kyiv in other regions in Ukraine.

The charity has so far provided food, medicine and hygiene products and arranged accommodation and psychosocial consultation to more than 110,000 people in Hungary and Ukraine.