Halyna, now 69 and enjoying her retirement, dedicated 43 years of her life to the field of school education.
After her college years, she embarked on her teaching career. Following 15 fruitful years in the classroom, Halyna took on leadership roles, first as a school principal and subsequently as the head of the methodological division at the district’s education department. She continued serving in the educational sector until her retirement.
Snihurivka, located in the Mykolaivska Oblast, has always been Halyna’s home. She fondly describes her hometown as characterized by its steppe landscape and its hardworking inhabitants. This is where the outbreak of the full-scale war caught her.
“On February 24, 2022, while I was in Snihurivka, we had to seek refuge in a bomb shelter for a month. We were seven, creating makeshift beds directly on the ground. From my home’s window, the ominous sight of Russian tanks across the field was unmistakable,” she recounts.
After Snihurivka was occupied, Halyna temporarily relocated, first to Mykolaiv and later to Khmelnytska Oblast, fleeing the relentless shelling of Mykolaiv. By April 2023, she made her way back to Snihurivka, which had by then been liberated. However, during her absence, the apartment building where she lived was damaged by a nearby shell explosion.
This incident, which occurred in July 2022, tragically claimed the lives of four women seated close to her building’s entrance. The force of the explosion shattered two of Halyna’s windows. Upon her return, she took on the task of repairing some of the damages herself, saying, “I managed to replace the kitchen window on my own and I’m grateful for the assistance I received in fixing the second one.”
The project Humanitarian Assistance to Besieged Cities and IDP-Hosting Locations Inside Ukraine aims to carry out 225 repair projects in the Mykolaivska Oblast, with over 100 already completed.
The project Humanitarian Assistance to Besieged Cities and IDP-Hosting Locations Inside Ukraine is being implemented by the Charity Foundation Stabilization Support Services with the support of the humanitarian organization CARE.Ukraine.