Shelter
The Shelter project was launched in 2014 as a response to the start of the war in eastern Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea. The main impulse for opening the Shelter came from the many requests for help from LGBTQI+ people who wanted to escape the war. The first requests came from LGBTQI+ people who had taken an active part in the struggle for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
The hardest stage was finding premises for the Shelter and trying to persuade landlords to rent space to LGBTQI+ people who were at the same time internally displaced persons. That process took more than a month. Sadly, we can say that this was exactly the kind of multiple discrimination faced by people who belong to several discriminated groups at once. When we did manage to find premises to rent, they cost above the market price precisely because of these circumstances.
After the Shelter opened, LGBTQI+ people from eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and the areas adjacent to the contact line began writing to us. Over the entire life of the project (20/06/2014 – 31/08/2019) we received more than 300 applications and were able to provide shelter to 112 people, among them 35 lesbians, 36 gay men, 8 bisexual people, and 33 transgender people.
The main purpose of the Shelter project was to provide fast and effective help to LGBTQI+ people affected by the war in eastern Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea, and to those who suffered violence and discrimination rooted in homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. The services we provided free of charge included: accommodation for up to 3 months, food, public transport cards, a basic first aid kit, psychological counseling, legal support and help with documents, and help with finding work and settling into a new place.
Unfortunately, our biggest problem was finding sustained funding for this project, so for most of the time it was financed out of our own pocket and through crowdfunding. We constantly had to raise money, ask the LGBTQI+ community for help with household appliances, dishes, and other essentials, and keep the Shelter going with the personal funds of Insight NGO members.
In 2018 we managed to collect the stories of several people who had lived in the Shelter and turn them into a publication.
The Shelter through the eyes of its residents:
On August 31, 2019, the project was closed due to a lack of funding.