1. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

The ICRC is an independent, neutral organisation ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence.

Help for Ukraine: The ICRC's priority is to help those in need. The security situation permitting, its teams in Ukraine will continue their work to repair vital infrastructure, support health facilities with medicines and equipment, and support families with food and hygiene items. The ICRC currently has 600 people working in Ukraine and provides updates from its team in the field. This means it is very aware of where needs are greatest and can direct aid accordingly.

2. International Rescue Committee (IRC)

The IRC responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their future.

Help for Ukraine: The IRC is launching an emergency appeal to help support displaced families with critical aid. The IRC is already on the ground working with local partners in Ukraine and Poland, mobilising resources to provide life-saving support to people and families forced to flee their homes.

3. Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders)

MSF is an international, medical humanitarian organisation working in more than 70 countries around the world. Their medical teams act fast to save people’s lives in conflict zones, natural disasters and epidemics and go where they are needed most.

Help for Ukraine: The MSF teams in Ukraine are currently seeking ways to adapt their response as the conflict situation evolves. The situation is fast-evolving, so MSF is mobilising a general emergency-preparedness response to be ready for a variety of potential needs. Its teams in Belarus and Russia stand ready to provide humanitarian assistance if needed and the charity is looking to send teams to other neighbouring countries to be ready on stand-by, either for emergency response in Ukraine or to provide humanitarian medical assistance to refugees seeking asylum abroad. MSF’s supply centres are working on readying medical kits for rapid despatch.

Due to the way MSF is funded, most of their donations are "unrestricted" and can be used wherever the need is greatest: while MSF cannot restrict donations to go towards their work in Ukraine, the aid they have provided in Ukraine is funded by donations like these.

4. Save the Children

In more than 100 countries around the world, Save the Children helps children stay safe, healthy and learning. It leads the way on tackling big problems such as pneumonia, hunger and protecting children in war, while making sure each child’s unique needs are catered for.

Help for Ukraine: The war in Ukraine is forcing children and families in major cities into basements and bomb shelters to escape explosions. Save the Children is working quickly to assess what support children and families need and stands ready to provide life-saving aid. They are supporting by:

• distributing essential humanitarian aid to children and their families
• delivering winter and hygiene kits
• providing cash grants to families so they can meet basic needs like food, rent and medicines
• providing access to safe, inclusive, quality education
• working to help children overcome the mental and psychological impacts of conflict 

5. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 

UNICEF provides more children with clean water, life-saving food and vaccines, education and protection from violence than any other humanitarian organisation.

Help for Ukraine: UNICEF is especially concerned for the safety and wellbeing of children who have become separated from their families. It has been supporting people in Ukraine by:

• helping to provide families with access to clean water and nutritious food
• helping to make sure that child health and protection services are sustained
• working with our partners and the UNHCR to assess the refugee situation across neighbouring countries

6. UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) 

The primary purpose of UNHCR is to safeguard the rights and wellbeing of people who have been forced to flee. Together with partners and communities, it works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country. 

Help for Ukraine: UNHCR has stepped up its operations and capacity in Ukraine and neighbouring countries.  It remains firmly committed to supporting all affected populations in Ukraine and countries in the region. UNHCR aims to help ensure that Ukrainians forced to flee their homes are sheltered and safe.

7. Caritas - Ukraine

 Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of over 160 members who are working at the grassroots in almost every country of the world. When a crisis hits, Caritas is already on the ground.

Help for Ukraine: The Caritas Confederation has launched an emergency appeal to support the work of Caritas Ukraine. The programme aims to support conflict-affected people with food, drinking water, safe accommodation and hygiene kits, as well as ensuring safe transportation for vulnerable people to reach their loved ones and safe areas.

Since late summer 2021, particularly in eastern Ukraine, Caritas anticipated humanitarian response for the possible escalation of the conflict. Caritas trained staff and volunteers to increase its capacity to meet the needs of the local communities and strengthen its network. It also pre-positioned temporary centres to welcome and ensure assistance to internally displaced people whose number will most likely increase considerably with the onset of this recent military intervention.

8. Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC)

When large-scale disasters hit countries without the capacity to respond, the DEC brings together 15 leading UK aid charities to raise funds quickly and efficiently.

Help for Ukraine: By donating to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal, you'll help DEC charities provide food, water, shelter and healthcare to refugees and displaced families. The UK Government will match donations from the public pound-for-pound up to £20 million, meaning your support will go even further.

9. The Big Give – Disasters Emergency Committee matched funding

The Big Give is an online match funding platform that brings charities, philanthropists, and the public together to multiply their impact.

Help For Ukraine: Leveraging more funds to the DEC whilst the matched funds remain.

10. Hope and Homes for Children

Hope and Homes for Children is working alongside governments and civil society organisations in over 30 countries to dismantle orphanage-based care systems.

Help for Ukraine: Thousands of people have already fled across the border. Already, families have been separated in the chaos, and children are travelling, unaccompanied, into foreign countries. Hope and Homes for Children are deeply concerned for the 100,000 children warehoused in Ukraine’s orphanage system. Orphanage buildings are already being targeted by shells, missiles, and illegal cluster bombs. As fighting intensifies, the staff in these institutions are fleeing. Large numbers of children are being left to face the dangers of war, alone. Your donations help us provide:

• Assistance to the team in Ukraine in providing practical, life-saving support for children and vulnerable families caught in the conflict.
• Our emergency response in neighbouring countries Moldova and Romania with partners, supporting unaccompanied children with material and emotional support.
• Our expertise to make sure border crossings are as safe as they can be for vulnerable children and young people and to advocate for the safe reunification of families as soon as possible and where this is not possible, for emergency foster and family type care for children. 

11. Lumos

Since 2009, Lumos have been working globally to prevent abandoned children from entering harmful institutions. They to keep families together and provide support for children within their communities.

Help for Ukraine: Right now, our team is working in Ukraine, in neighbouring countries, and with trusted partners in the region to provide assistance to children trapped in orphanages, to provide emergency food, hygiene and medical kits, to help keep some of the most vulnerable children safe, and support families, foster carers and emergency foster carers. Your donations help us provide:

• Send vital resources to vulnerable children
• Prevent family separation
• Psychological support to children

12. The HALO Trust

HALO is the world’s leading NGO clearing the debris of war, employing about 10,000 staff.  Within the UK’s fantastic charitable sector, HALO shines out in its absolute dedication and focus on getting the job done with minimal bureaucracy. 

Help for Ukraine: currently working in Ukraine with 430 local staff providing urgent and immediate support clearing dangerous debris, educating children and adults to keep them safe, and using their outstanding logistical expertise to assist other crisis response actors in transport and other important services.

The case for supporting their work in Ukraine is clear and urgent:

• The Ukraine war involves the indiscriminate use of deadly weapons, including mines, cluster bombs and other ordnance that kills scores of innocent civilians during and long after war;
• Children’s natural curiosity makes them especially vulnerable to the dangers of lethal debris;
• HALO’s 30+ years’ experience dealing with every kind of unexploded ordnance;
• HALO’s track record operating in very difficult and hazardous environments, e.g. Afghanistan, Syria, Angola;
• HALO is extremely well run: the CEO is an effective and strategic leader; the management team are expert and serious; and their staff are local and familiar with the territory;
• HALO’s overheads are very lean - donor funds are maximised for impact;
• The work HALO does is inspiring and highly visible to the public.