An overview of the four months of operations published, including basic statistics on humanitarian aid distributed, stables supported, evacuations of horses and fundraising:
Overview can be found under theย link or below as a pdf file.
This has been the result of a long labor of love by the Ukrainian Equestrian Federation Charity Foundation. Their goal is to produce humanitarian horse feed in Ukraine to cut the costs on logistics from abroad, use local raw materials to help the farmers and give work to the Ukrainian feed production enterprise to help the local economy.
Letychiv, Ukraine, June 20, 2022.
Surrounded by the noise of the feed production factory, Taisia Stadnichenko, head of Ukrainian Operations for the Ukrainian Equestrian Federation Charity Foundation, proudly stands at the end of the production line to witness the first 90 tonnes of UEF-CF humanitarian feed for horses coming off the production line, wrapped in its distinctive blue and yellow humanitarian aid packaging.
This has been the result of a long labour of love by the Ukrainian Equestrian Federation Charity Foundation. Their goal is to produce humanitarian horse feed in Ukraine to cut the costs on logistics from abroad, use local raw materials to help the farmers and give work to the Ukrainian feed production enterprise to help the local economy.
About 100,000 Ukrainian horses are currently in difficulties. In the first months of the war, the UEF-CF received kind humanitarian aid donations from abroad which partially solved the problem. However, it also created some new ones as the donated food came from a wide variety of brands, producers and countries. The timing and quantities of in-kind donations were unpredictable. The frequent changes of food made the rehabilitation process of weak and starving horses difficult and under certain conditions even dangerous for horses’ health.
When the amount of humanitarian aid began to decrease and the cost of logistics increased, a decision was made to use donor funds more efficiently and produce feed in Ukraine at one of the most technologically advanced feed processing factories – Letychiv feed mill, which is a part of Edinstvo Holding.
The project was made possible thanks to cooperation with the Dutch premium horse feed manufacturer Horsefood (https://www.horsefoodthebest.nl/), which developed a special recipe of the core essential nutrients, vitamins and supplements needed for horses after starvation or a period of restriction of the diet, with reduced immunity. Horsefoodโs formula provides 25% of the composition. The other 75% of the feed consists of the Ukrainian sourced raw materials – barley, wheat, bran, corn and molasses. The essence of the product is that it meets the current needs of horses in Ukraine, which do not need high-energy fast release food, at the same time, most of them suffer from malnutrition, stress, frequent transportation and unusual lifestyle.
“Using a feed factory inside Ukraine solves several problems at once,” said Mykhaylo Parkhomchuk, founder of the Ukrainian Equestrian Federation Charity Foundation and the Secretary General of the Ukrainian Equestrian Federation. โLocal production reduces the variety and constant change of feed, which exacerbates the risk of horse health problems. Secondly, the use of local raw materials and production enables the UEF-CF to use the financial donations we receive from around the world and use them in Ukraine to directly help not only the equestrian community but also to help the farmers and local companies in Ukraine, whilst maintaining jobs.โ
Feed is packed in specially printed bags, which state: “humanitarian aid, not for sale.” According to the team of the UEF-CF, this will help to avoid abuse and possible resale.
This feed, as well as other humanitarian aid from the Foundation, can be received by any stable or equestrian club in Ukraine, from a home with just one horse or pony to a large stable or racetrack.
โFor us, the value or pedigree of a horse does not matter. We assume that each horse is the most favorite for its owner. – states Taisiya Stadnichenko. – Most owners suffer from a lack of funds to keep their horses. Our goal is to help them feed the horses during the most difficult time of adaptation to the new reality, so that they do not make rash decisions about their animals.โ
The UEF-CF system that collects requests for humanitarian aid for horses has been working since the beginning of the war, it is open, transparent and accessible to all. Currently, about 300 stables and clubs need assistance, of which about 170 stables with a total population of more than 3,500 horses have received aid from the UEF-CF. As the need for humanitarian aid is projected to increase, it is hoped that the localization of feed production will help to feed horses in Ukraine.
About the Ukrainian Equestrian Federation Charity Foundation
The mission of the foundation, founded on the 4th day of the war, is to help Ukrainian horses and horsemen to survive the terrible times and, in the future, to help restore the equestrian sports industry of Ukraine. The main three areas of the Fund’s work are: evacuation of horses from dangerous areas, assistance with fodder and bedding, keeping horses in free shelters in Lviv and Rivne regions.
At present, about 500 horses have been evacuated in Ukraine and abroad, and about 1,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for 3,500 horses have been delivered to more than 170 stables in Ukraine. A transparent system of requests for humanitarian aid has been created through a chatbot and an application on the website, along with an electronic queue for evacuation, and a map of shelters. At the same time, there is a logistics system for transporting feed to the stables and evacuation, and free shelters are provided. The work of the Foundation is provided by about 30 volunteers in Ukraine and about 40 volunteers abroad.
An overview of the three months of operations published, including basic statistics on humanitarian aid distributed, stables supported, evacuations of horses and fundraising.
Overview can be found under theย linkย or below as a pdf file.
25/05/2022, 90 days of war
The Ukrainian Equestrian Federation Charity Foundation (UEF-CF) will no longer evacuate horses from Ukraine. The organization noticed an decreasing interest of the horse owners getting their horses evacuated to other countries. The focus is now more on horses’ wellbeing and relocating them in safer areas within Ukraine.
The huge demand for evacuation out of Ukraine that we observed in the first couple of months of the Russian invasion has almost stopped. During that time the UEF-CF assisted in the evacuation of over 250 horses to Poland. Now there are just a few horses that are waiting in the electronic queue for evacuation, created by UEF-CF to make the process of evacuation transparent and accessible for all horse owners.
For relocating horses to the safe areas in western Ukraine and for evacuating them to Poland UEF-CF used 3 free evacuation stables – 2 in Ukraine and 1 in Poland. After closing the base in Poland, the Foundation is focusing on helping to keep horses safe and ensuring their wellbeing in Ukraine, to assist them to return home from western Ukraine and to relocate others within Ukraine away from the red zones.
During the last few weeks the war has localized in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine and the relocation trend has reversed – people want to return home and sometimes trucks that were moving horses to the evacuation stables in western Ukraine deliver horses back to the eastern
regions.
Having helped more than 160 stables all over Ukraine and talked to the refugees, UEF-CF is very aware that owners want their horses to be home, even if their stables and homes have been destroyed or they have little money to feed them, they still prefer to have them home. As equestrians ourselves, we can understand their depth of feeling.
โWe are continuing to relocate horses within Ukraine from dangerous areas like Kramatorsk, Lysychansk etc and to provide ample, free and safe shelters in western Ukraine where the UEF-CF, with the support of the FEI, has established evacuation stables for 100 horsesโ – says Mykhailo Parkhomchuch, the founder of the UEF-CF. โThis is all funded by donations coming in from all around the world and we really appreciate every dollar or euro from people and all the lorries of food and bedding from various organizations. This allows us to help more than 3 500 horses, because their owners at the moment don’t have the ability to feed them. They lost everything – their homes, jobs, and dreams, but managed to save their horses. And our goal is to help them during the time they need to recoverโ.
Before the war there were about 100 000 horses in Ukraine, now it’s pretty complicated to count. Some of them were displaced, some were killed in Russian attacks, some died from hunger or injuries, some were lost, or got stolen by Russians. The amount of horses that need help in Ukraine is growing because of the crashed economy in the country. By the end of the summer the Charity Foundation estimates over 5 000 horses will need help.
Currently, the UEF-CF is taking care of around 3500 horses in Ukraine providing them with free feed and bedding. The UEF-CF has created a transparent system to enable requests for humanitarian aid and logistics to cover more than 150 stables and equestrian clubs of all sizes – from 1 horse to over 300 horses and is developing possibilities to help more. But this help depends on donations.
โAt the moment we are covering about 20% of needs, we distributed over 800 tons of food and bedding all around Ukraineโ – Taisia Stadnichenko, the head of Ukrainian operations of the UEF-CF says – โit’s about 90% of all equestrian humanitarian aid that was delivered in Ukraine. Now we are trying to cooperate with all charity organizations that help Ukrainian equestrians to avoid doubling help and to cover as many stables as we canโ.
Closing Polish operations allows UEF-CF to redirect the efforts to the Ukrainian horses that prefer not to leave the country. The transit stable at Lesla Wola (POL) will be closing this week since there are no horses evacuated by UEF-CF there.
Looking back to the hardest times of the first 3 months of war the UEF-CF would like to extend their deepest thanks to Ewa Walas who played a huge role at her competition hub by giving her kind permission to set up the UEF-CF temporary transit stables there for the evacuated horses. What was
only supposed to be a few short weeks, turned into several months. Ewaโs patience and her stables were invaluable for the evacuated horses during this hardest first phase. We also thank Charlie Thornycroft, who came over from the UK and who worked tirelessly to help the horses and assisted
with the logistics. The Foundation highly appreciates donors’ help to provide our rescue horses high quality food and bedding and hope that they will redirect their help to the horses in Ukraine.
An overview of the two months of operations published, including basic statistics on humanitarian aid distributed, stables supported, evacuations of horses and fundraising.
Overview can be found under the link or below as a pdf file.
Second evacuation stables opened
We have opened another free evacuation stables with 60 boxes this week and created an evacuation queue on their website where people who need evacuating can register.
Evacuated horses mainly go to safer areas within the Ukraine as many owners do not want their horses to leave the country. The first horses from Lysychansk arrived at the evacuation stable in Mirihoshcha which are 100% funded by the donations received by UEF – CF. Feed, bedding, and free accommodation is available for the horse owners and accompanying persons. This is only possible because of the kind donations from all around the world.
Online conference
We held an online conference open to all where we discussed current needs of the Ukrainian equestrian population and what is needed for the medium and longer term.
Supplies
The UEF-CF received trucks of supplies and feed from several countries including Belgium and Poland and have now supplied over 80 stables in Ukraine.
๐๐ข๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ฉ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ก๐จ๐ซ๐ฌ๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐
We have continued the supply runs in Ukraine this week providing feed, bedding and supplies to the Ukraine equestrian community including to the hippodrome at Kyiv where 300 horses are staying.
We have updated our Website
There you can find
๐๐๐ฐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ญ๐ซ๐จ๐ง๐ข๐ ๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐ฏ๐๐๐ฎ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง
The new UEFCF electronic queue for horse evacuations collection points is now online, which will make it easier for people in Ukraine to register for collection and help to streamline the evacuation procedure. This can be accessed on our website and is in ukrainian language.
The UEFCF evacuation trips for the horses will be made from Kiev, Dnipro and Odessa to the temporary stables in Lviv and are free of charge because they are funded from your donations.
The horse trucks will be filled according to the queue. No more than 4 horses per owner can have a place in the queue at any one time.
๐๐๐ฐ ๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐๐ง๐ฌ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ซ๐๐ ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ข๐ซ ๐ซ๐๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ข๐
To simplify the process for applying for humanitarian aid, we have created the Telegram Chatbot called Horse Gum Bot. The chatbot (available in the Ukrainian language) collects all the information needed to distribute humanitarian aid by region. Users answer 10 simple questions including the location of the stable, the number of horses and their most urgent needs. The chatbot will automatically pass the collected information to the UEFCF team. When the supplies are due to arrive in the area, UEFCF volunteers will contact those who have applied for it, so they can collect it. The Chatbot is available 24 hours a day. You can get access to this Chat Bot also via our website.
๐ช๐ถ๐๐ต๐ผ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐ฑ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐, ๐ป๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐๐ผ๐๐น๐ฑ ๐ฏ๐ฒ ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐๐ถ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ.
๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ ๐ฑ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐จ๐๐๐๐ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ ๐ฎ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ณ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ต๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ถ๐ป ๐จ๐ธ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ.
Through help from the FEI Solidarity Fund, the UEFCF is setting up a stable facility at Lviv with 40 boxes to house horses in transit as we begin to evacuate more horses from danger. These stables will be operational this week.
We continue to work with a number of individuals on both sides of the border to establish more stop over locations for horses. Some horses will go to the west of Ukraine where it is currently safer for them and some will move further west into neighboring counties. We have an ever evolving map available on our website showing these stable offers from within the Ukraine.
We have had very generous offers from a number of logistics/horse transport companies all over Europe but crossing the border into Ukraine remains complex, as you can imagine, for a number of reasons and the logistics of moving horses is extremely challenging inside Ukraine.
We currently have Ukrainian drivers operating shuttle trucks with supplies from our storage facilities at the Polish border to the areas within Ukraine that have requested help and, once the supplies have been delivered to various points within the Ukraine, the trucks can return to the Polish border via pick up points to collect horses that are to be evacuated and take them back to our transit stables.
This is why it is so important that people put their help requests onto our website, because it is this information that we use to plan our supplies and aid trips.
Your donations enable us to provide the supply deliveries, free feed to the drop off points and return journeys to the border for evacuating the horses within the Ukraine for free. The feed in Lviv is free for the horses that are in the temporary stables as we are using your donated bedding, food and hay there as well as in our transit stable in Poland. The horses can also stay for free in our transit stables at the polish border for their transit period of 10 days.
Please keep your donations and offers of help and supplies coming in.
They are making such a difference to the horses and people in Ukraine.
Humanitarian aid delivered to Ukraine, including different types of feed, haylage, different types of hay and shavings.
Stables in the Lviv region were the first to receive humanitarian aid on March 16, 2022, providing shelter to horses evacuated from combat zones. Namely, the stables of the Lviv Hippodrome, equestrian clubs ยซะััะตะฒัััะฝะธะบยป, ยซะะฐั
ัะดะฝะพ-ะฃะบัะฐัะฝััะบะธะน ะบัะฝะฝะธะน ะดะฒััยป.
Then the aid went further to the East to the Khmelnytsky region (Baykiv, Paradis, Dunaivtsi and Ternopil). On 17th March, a truck is planned to arrive to Kyiv (Dynamo). It will be distributed to those stables and clubs, where help is most needed based on the mapping done by our volunteers. The following parameters taken into consideration, when allocating the aid: number of horses, amount of feed left. The priority is given to stables with small quantity of feed left. Volunteers will contact stables and clubs in Kyiv to inform how feed can be picked up from Dynamo.
About three tons also went to Odessa region. Those in the most acute situation will also be contacted to receive aid.
We are currently developing a full-scale logistics system in Ukraine, which will allow to transport much more goods by trucks and/or trains. This will allow us to get to those parts of the country, where it is extremely difficult to bring help, such as Kharkiv. We also work with donators to get a continuous delivery of supplies. Thank you for all donators for your kind help!
Ukrainian Equestrian Charity Foundation 