Our history
Where it all began
It all began in the winter of 2013, at Warsaw’s Maidan, a place where people united by the need to support Ukraine gathered.
In the crowd, we stood side by side: mother and daughter, Halyna Andrushkov and Viktoria Batryn. At that time, we planned nothing more than presence and solidarity. We simply wanted to be where history was happening.
A few weeks later, we went with medical aid to Kyiv.
And when we returned, the wounded from Maidan were admitted to hospitals in Poland, and we began visiting them—first with food and clothes, then with help in translations and daily matters.
Volunteers appeared on their own. Everyone wanted to do something.
Day by day, an informal but strong community began to form around the aid, born from the heart’s need.
Born from the need to act
A year later, requests for support began to arrive from Ukraine. There was not yet an army in the modern sense; there were volunteers—people who simply wanted to defend their homes and land. Together with Polish partners, we assembled and delivered the first IFAK first aid kits and rescue sets.
At the same time, the idea came to do something good for children who had lost their fathers in the war. We wanted to prepare several dozen holiday packages—symbolic ones so they would feel they were not alone. Instead of 40, we managed to collect 900 gifts.
All across Poland, people started organizing their own collections, calling, bringing packages, asking how to help. That’s how our first major campaign “Christmas without father” was born.
We didn’t plan for it to become a tradition. But people asked for it every year themselves.
In the following years, our help did not end at the holidays.
Together with the Sarepta Brotherhood, we organized summer camps in the Bieszczady Mountains for children who had lost their parents as a result of the war.
For two weeks, they could rest, play, make new friends, and feel like children again—far from fear and daily hardships.
From an initiative to a foundation
Over time, the aid grew, along with the number of people who wanted to work with us.
We realized that this was no longer spontaneous volunteering, but something bigger, so we registered the UNITERS Foundation to operate more systematically, responsibly, and effectively.
In 2022, when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, phones were ringing nonstop.
People from all over Poland asked: “What are you collecting? How can we help?”
After dividing roles with other organizations, UNITERS took on coordinating humanitarian aid transports from Europe to Ukraine, as well as support for thousands of people seeking shelter in Poland.
In March 2022, thanks to the help of the Śródmieście Cultural Center, we opened a humanitarian aid point in Warsaw that is still operating today.
This is a place where every day 4–5 thousand people find help: refugees, seniors, single parents, people with disabilities.
The point has changed locations and format but never changed its mission: to be a place where people come together to help each other
UNITERS today
Today, UNITERS is a community of over 3000 volunteers and 200 partners from around the world.
We run the largest Humanitarian Hub in Poland, from which we have already delivered over 7000 tons of humanitarian aid. We help children, families, seniors, refugees – everyone facing a crisis.
We create and distribute medical kits, rescue backpacks, and equipment for hospitals, conduct psychological and art therapy activities, organize school and workplace volunteering, and every year we carry out the “Christmas without father ” campaign to remind children that the world remembers them.
All of this happens thanks to the people who help and those who ask for help. Because it is precisely where these two sides meet that UNITERS begins.
Why we do it
We don’t have grand slogans.
We simply believe that even a small help can be the beginning of something great.
UNITERS was born from the heart’s need, but it operates with the strength of community. It is a place that brings people together to save lives, protect childhood, and restore faith in goodness.