Your donations helped a lot!

“This is real, hands-on help and a genuine act of care,” Anna Serdiuk (see photo above), chief editor at Vilne Radio from Bakhmut writes in an email to n-ost. She is talking about the small space heater and hot plate that have made their newsroom a much better place over the past few days - thanks to donation packages from Berlin.

Around €6,000 has been raised through the two donation campaigns that n-ost has been running since the end of November to provide Urainian newsrooms with power banks, heaters, and electricity generators. “We sincerely thank you for your support during this difficult winter period, when after the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, a significant part of our team in Kyiv and the region was left without heating, electricity, and water", Anna writes. “Thanks to portable heaters and gas stoves, our staff were able to stay warm, cook meals, and look after their families."

Ukraine is going through the toughest winter of the war so far. For small and mid-sized media outlets in particular, it’s almost impossible to keep reporting going with the ongoing energy shortages. “Some of our colleagues had to move their work to cafés or even shopping malls because of the energy crisis,” Anna Serdiuk says. “But that’s obviously a real problem, especially when you’re dealing with sensitive information.” 

Vilne Radio is not the only newsroom that has received support from n-ost. The teams at Poltavska Khvilia (Poltava), NikVesti (Mykolaiv/Odesa), Hrechka (Kropyvnytskyi), www.6262.com.ua (Sloviansk), and the Public Interest Journalism Lab (Kyiv) have also been supplied with equipment enabling them to continue their work. 

This straightforward help is all the more important because smaller media outlets outside the capital usually don’t get much attention from big international aid programs—and they often don’t have the resources to apply for support through complicated procedures. In this situation, the help from n-ost donors is especially valuable: a network that’s simply there when you need it. Thank you!