Since the escalation of the war in February 2022, until mid-October 2024, nearly 6.8 million refugees4 from Ukraine have been recorded – 92 per cent of them in Europe. Inside Ukraine, an estimated 3.6 million people5 remain internally displaced as of October 2024.
Among the most vulnerable are also an estimated 12.6 million as of March 2025 people who were not displaced from their homes but who have been directly affected by the war – they have been wounded, their homes have been destroyed, their family members died.
Civilian infrastructure, such as power grids, water supply networks. hospitals transportation infrastructure, have been targeted by the daily missile attacks, severely disrupting people’s lives across the whole country, and particularly in the East.
24.05.2022
From her first day in Poland, Julia knew that this was not the time to cry, but to take concrete action. She came up with the idea of bringing together some women who had also fled the war in Ukraine to teach them how to crochet. That’s how a group was formed that creates beautiful baskets, and seeing their determination, we decided to help them launch a real Good Factory of handicrafts.
This is the story of women who, brutally forced to flee their homes and find themselves in a foreign place, did not give up and transformed their need for action into creating handicrafts that allow them to survive in Poland.
At first Olha apologises to us for not being able to talk about her last days in Chernihiv. After a while, however, she raises her eyes and begins to speak, and we feel the tension in the air:
“In Chernihiv it was like this… I was with my family, my husband and my daughter. Every minute we felt as if we were standing on the edge of a precipice. We were very scared. All this was happening behind the wall of our house. They were burning buildings, seizing people, and we could only wait. This feeling of not having any control over my own destiny was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. People are dying next to you, and you can only pray that your family will not be next.”
Talking to her, we realise that she has seen all the horrors of war, although she doesn’t tell us about all of them – and we don’t dare ask her to either. Her eyes say more about the tragedy that has befallen Ukraine than words can convey. But Olha does not stop crocheting. She only does so when Julia’s little son climbs onto her lap and demands her attention.
For these women, creating handicrafts is synonymous with independence. It is the basis of an enterprise whose wings can spread under the care of the Good Factory – that means yours! It is finally a semblance of normality for moments when thoughts do not run wild and do not turn back to still fresh memories of a country engulfed in war.
Julia, Olha and Nina are the true spirit of the Good Factory who just need as many of you as possible to know about their initiative!
Please help us out and take a look at the shop, where you can find the beautiful baskets they have made.
30.01.2024
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12.06.2023
To our questions about estimated casualty numbers, the most common answer is: “A lot! On both sides!”. Exactly how many no one knows, because getting aid to the occupied territories is like asking the aggressor for an open day in his trenches. On the 11th of June, the Russians fired on a boat with civilians […]
02.05.2023
What if this was your neighbourhood? If, between the billowing smoke, you spotted the ruins of the grocery store where you had shopped since you were a child? To which your mother would still send you with a list written in pencil on a piece of paper so you wouldn’t forget anything? Bachmut had more […]
