Scheduled and emergency power outages significantly affect the ability to carry out registration or re-registration of internally displaced persons, as well as the calculation of their housing assistance benefits and any other social payments. Outages interrupt the processing of applications and the creation of documents, resulting in significant delays in the payment of benefits.
In November, we received requests for generators with sufficient capacity to ensure stable operation of social protection departments. Accordingly, we purchased and delivered 39 generators to 20 departments in 7 oblasts of Ukraine – Kyivska, Khersonska, Poltavska, Zaporizka, Donetska, Lvivska and Cherkaska.
“Our project did not envisage the purchase of generators, but they were urgently needed. I am incredibly grateful to UNHCR, for their flexibility and understanding and for facilitating these purchases. Perhaps 39 generators is only a small number compared to the scale of the existing needs. However, we understand that at least 20 offices will be able to continue rendering services and making payments even in the face of power outages. We are also grateful to all employees of social protection agencies who, despite all the difficulties, continue to work hard to ensure that people affected by the hostilities receive their payments on time and in full,” said Valeriya Vershynina, project manager.
We provide equipment to regional departments as part of the project “Supporting the Capacity of the Social Protection System to Register Internally Displaced Persons” supported by the UNHCR Ukraine. The project helps us strengthen the capacity of social protection workers who provide services and assistance to IDPs from all over the country on a daily basis.
“Currently, the situation with electricity supply remains critical and worsens after large-scale bombardments. This leads to significant changes in the work of departments of social protection. After all, a social protection department is not just a place where people come to receive social services. The department needs an electronic system, communication, computers, printers, and scanners to operate. Therefore, during power outages, the departments are actually deprived of the opportunity to both provide direct services to citizens and process stored paperwork, reducing the effective number of working hours by about half. For this reason, the staff of the social protection departments were enthusiastic about the generators we delivered to them. For them, it is an opportunity to work to the fullest extent and thus relieve social tension among the population,” commented Oleksandr Yavtushenko, our regional coordinator in Kyiv and the Kyivska Oblast. We provided one powerful 20 kW generator to this oblast.
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