The Caritas-Spes medical center is a crossroads of stories , of lives interrupted by war, who seek a new beginning here to take back what was abruptly cut off by the outbreak of the conflict. Svitlana’s story is one of these.
Svitlana is 58 years old and comes from the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, in the south-eastern part of the country, near the nuclear power plant of Zaporizhia. This is where she lived all her previous life. She worked as a math teacher in a school : “I tried to teach children to think,” she says now with tears in her eyes, “all my life, friends, relatives, my elderly mother, they remained there. And there is no way to go to my mother because the Russians do not let anyone in.”
Svitlana is one of the patients at the medical center of Caritas-Spes Ukraine in Chernihiv, where she has undergone some visits and found psychological support to deal with these months of extreme vulnerability. It is not easy, the bond with her city and the students she left behind is strong. Whenever she can, she turns on the computer and still teaches math to her students with remote lessons: “We will rebuild everything, I’m sure of it. And I can’t wait to go back to my school. I dream of a real, live lesson , I dream of looking into the eyes of my kids, not online!”
Hope, in Svitlana’s heart, does not die.
She also had an eye exam at the Caritas-Spes clinic. She was given a new pair of glasses for free, the old ones were no longer suitable. And she was happy, because the war had also taken away her ability to go to a specialist. Now she can prepare her math lessons better.
Caritas-Spes’ medical support to the Ukrainian population is also possible thanks to funds raised by the Focolare Movement’s Emergency Coordination, through AMU and AFN.
