The Lviv region has become a new temporary shelter for hundreds of thousands of displaced people from all over Ukraine. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, people have been coming here in great numbers, as it is believed that the level of relative security in the west of Ukraine is higher than in other regions. For their part, local social protection departments continue to assist new arrivals, register them, assign monthly benefits, and help with accommodation. Today they are doing everything in their power to provide timely assistance for those who have arrived in the Lviv region.
We talked to the head of the Social Protection Department of the Zolochiv District State Administration, Victoriya Shumakova, about the challenges its employees face, as well as if the department’s new equipment, which the UN Refugee Agency provided, helps to provide services to people affected by the war.
— How many IDPs did your community receive, and how difficult was it to cope with the mass resettlement?
— Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, we have received almost 13,600 internally displaced persons. Unfortunately, I cannot provide an exact figure because it is constantly changing due to migration. Currently, there are 10,221 IDPs in our community.
Loads remain high because the migration problem persists. Because if a person enters the community, they don’t just move in; it means that their payments are transferred to our district. When someone comes to us, we submit requests to another district. This means working with the system, via the secure channels that the department works with, this is the work of our employees. This is about the certificates of payment that we require for newcomers and also issue to those who have left.
In fact, there is a lot behind the word “left”. Transferring the payment to another community and re-registering a person, deregistering them here, and registering them there requires lengthy correspondence and a lot of staff time. This work requires modern equipment and adequate, comfortable work conditions, without which quality services would not be possible.
— So, does inadequate equipment slow down the work of social security workers?
— It doesn’t even slow it down, it makes it impossible. Since the IDP base was being improved and changed during the full-scale invasion, the system was prone to freeze up. As a matter of fact, Ukraine has never experienced displacement of this magnitude before.
Also, we’ve noticed that better equipment speeds up the work. The IDPs, when they arrived, went to register immediately, because they did not know what would happen next. At the same time, they were not fully settled, in addition, they were cold, disoriented, and confused. And when it all froze up like that, it delayed the queue. We worked at night on our own equipment, our own laptops from home. This is not usual, and not everyone is actually required to have a laptop. And after we received the necessary equipment and reinstalled the databases, we noticed that our work became much easier, that it was both enjoyable and easy to do. We really work more efficiently when we have less strain on our human resources. The employees were exhausted, very tired. We have also recently migrated to a unified social information system — payments to IDPs are now calculated in a completely new system. If we did not have high-quality equipment, I am not sure that we could have done it.
— How long could the system remain unresponsive?
— All day long. Because the entire Ukraine entered the system at the same time, then at certain hours the base was being unloaded and could not be used. The quality of the equipment was also affected. People who took their own laptops to work noted that with better equipment the work was faster. Because when both your computer and the database freeze, then, of course, you have double the problems.
We worked at night. We took documents from those people who came to the department in the evening and told them to come at ten or eleven in the morning. And the employees went to work tired, and issued certificates in the morning — but people did not stand in queues. If they had stood all day, it would have accomplished nothing, and perhaps it would have made things worse because people were nervous, they were sick, and they had colds.
It happened that they did not have time to register everyone overnight, so I, as the head of the department, also registered IDPs. Because when there is a war, you cannot say, “I am the head, and we do not have time.” Someone is freezing in the trenches, someone is risking their lives, how can I sit in a warm house and watch? In addition, I wanted to know if it was really so difficult to register them. And indeed, it was a very difficult task.
— Are there fewer IDPs now compared to the beginning of the full-scale invasion?
— Now the main problem is migration to another system. There are fewer IDPs, but the work has not decreased, because the main work is now migration. When someone leaves, we have to prepare a certificate, extract it from the system, process it, send an electronic file through secure channels, and remove the person from the register. Again, if someone comes to us, we submit a request for a certificate, an electronic file, and register them here… When people applied to Diia but did not receive funds for a long time, we also processed their appeals. We are very grateful for the new equipment: when it is modern and multifunctional, of course, things go more smoothly.
— What else can help you in your work?
— Now we need electric generator, and shelves for IDP files because documents are stored in boxes. We also need more technical equipment. Recently we received two laptops from another foundation, but at the same time, three of our laptops broke. When we called a specialist to estimate the cost of repairs, he said that the equipment is very old and difficult to repair. Multifunction printers are highly demanded, as the payments department constantly scans documents, and all electronic files are created by scanned and sending them through secure channels. As a result, employees are even queuing up.
When we did not have new equipment, representatives of foundation came to us and filmed how the printers groaned when used. And people live and work surrounded by all this! In what condition do they return home at six in the evening, if the printer works like that all day? And, of course, equipment breaks down from time to time. Especially when it is old, it is always more difficult to repair.
I am delighted with the new equipment, as are our employees. It was very well made, and everything was very well thought out. Your foundation gave us exactly what we needed. When you handed over the equipment, there had been even fewer problems — the processing in Diia and a flood of requests began later. Everything needs to be scanned, sent, and for this, we need high-quality equipment. I am very grateful to you on behalf of the IDPs of the district, and on behalf of our employees.
Fortunately, we continue our work. I just can’t imagine how we would have managed without you. You have helped the IDPs and us a lot! We sincerely hope we will not be forgotten because we still have a lot of needs.
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