ukraine fundraiser: 3 posts

Since 2024, I’ve spent about six months in Ukraine, much of it traveling along the eastern and southern border. Sometimes, when I share photos of markets, sunlit streets, or old facades still standing proud, I get the question: Where’s the war?

We’re used to the stock images: bombed-out buildings, women crying before rubble, soldiers caked in mud. But war doesn’t always look like that.

War is the grinding exhaustion of nights spent listening for air raid sirens. It’s planning your day around the threat of missiles. It’s the constant worry for your family’s safety. It’s losing your home and scrambling to pay rent somewhere else.

And sometimes, war is a photograph of a talented teenager who will never get to grow up.

Veronika Kozhushko—Nika—was only 18 when a Russian missile struck Kharkiv in August 2024. She was already recognized as a gifted young artist—writing poetry, painting, exploring graphic design. Friends called her fiercely intelligent, endlessly curious, deeply woven into the city’s literary and art scene. She had plans. She had promise. She had so much life ahead of her.

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A few days ago, I had the privilege of visiting a very special place in Kyiv, Ukraine, a children’s art school that offers free lessons to young people affected by war. This school is much more than a classroom. It’s a sanctuary where children can paint, draw, sculpt, and express themselves freely. It’s a space where they can be children again.

When I arrived, I was greeted by the school’s director, teachers, and students with warmth and openness. Inside, the rooms were bright and alive with creativity. Paintings of fantastical creatures—dragons, mermaids—hung alongside delicate studies of flowers and landscapes. There was joy in these works, and courage too.

Thanks to your generous donations, I was able to collect funds and purchase much-needed art supplies such as paints, brushes, pencils, and sketchbooks. I made several shipments over the past months, but this visit was the first time I saw the children using them. It was deeply moving to witness how these simple tools became a means of expression, hope, and even healing.

Your contribution makes a difference: To Donate in USD. To Donate in EUR.
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Our Ukraine fundraiser is now closed. Thought Group Chile and I are grateful for your generous contributions that allowed us to raise almost $5000. Cristián Wittig, the director of the group, will explain how these funds will be used to rebuild devastated Ukrainian cities.

“Thank you very much indeed for your generous and valuable donation and contribution to our cause. With your contribution we were able to continue developing the final part of our architectural proposals for the Memorial of the Civilian Victims of the Massacre in Irpin and Bucha, the New Public Library of Irpin, which, as you know, were awarded and selected to be built as soon as possible. Likewise, your help also allowed us to develop our proposal for the New House of Culture in Ivanivka, Chernihiv, which was officially presented to its authorities, being received with much gratitude, emotion and impression for the seriousness and quality of the proposal developed, and we obtained their approval and commitment to be built, as soon as possible, since it collects and reflects much of the essence of that local community, its requirements and desires for modernity and the future.

In parallel, as you may know, we are moving forward with the other conceptual architecture proposals commissioned by the City of Irpin (3 additional projects) and the City of Chernihiv (4 additional projects). As you can see, your contributions and those that will come in the future are absolutely essential in order to continue this extraordinary work of architecture for the reconstruction of Ukraine. We will remain in active contact to inform you of our progress.”

Now onto the winners of the contest.

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