Current responses /

Ukraine

Conflict response

Across Ukraine, we help war-affected communities restore the homes, services and safe spaces that make everyday life possible.

Workers repair the roof of a damaged home in Ukraine as part of GER³’s recovery efforts. Photo: GER³

Emergency in Ukraine
War continues to disrupt lives across Ukraine. Help GER³ deliver urgent support to affected communities.

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Overview

Since June 2022, GER³ has been operational in Ukraine, with our Kyiv-based team actively responding to support the most vulnerable communities affected by the ongoing war.

GER³’s approach, targeting both immediate relief and early recovery, integrates the provision of essential supplies, such as specialized medical equipment or winter fuel, with restoration of critical community infrastructure, including homes, health facilities, water systems and schools.

Whether we’re installing more energy efficient windows in homes, transitioning water services to harness solar power – protecting them from war-related electrical disruptions – or providing schools with bomb shelters that both keep children safe and operate as valuable additional learning spaces, we’re consistently focused on building back better, designing solutions which improve resilience and address the protracted emergency conditions in Ukraine.

General focus areas

Repairing war damaged homes

As of 2026, over 250,000 residential buildings (including homes and apartment buildings) have been damaged in Ukraine, primarily in frontline regions. This damage keeps thousands of Ukrainians in displacement or living in inadequate conditions, creating instability which impacts their financial, physical and mental health, as well as their ability to start the recovery process.

GER³ works in areas what were occupied by Russian forces over a span of months in 2022, sustaining widespread damage, and provides a full range of home repair services, addressing broken windows up to structural damage. Above all, GER³ focuses on closing the home’s thermal envelope, protecting against the cold. We also prioritize disability inclusion and make adjustments to ensure accessibility for all residents. Our support targets the most at-risk populations, including internally displaced people (IDPs), elderly people, and single parents.

Since 2022, GER³ has provided repairs for over 4,200 vulnerable people, meeting their need for a dignified home and enabling them to focus on the process of rebuilding their lives.

Restoration of health, water, and education services

Occupation and years of active targeting have left many communities with dysfunctional health, water and education services, with systems crippled by damage, electricity outages and the ongoing risk of attacks. GER³ identifies critical civilian infrastructure in highly war-affected regions and designs infrastructure rehabilitation projects which allow medical clinics to reopen, water services to operate continuously and schools to safety serve children.

We prioritize a localized approach, utilizing Ukrainian engineers, contractors and suppliers, often from the communities where we are working. School administrators, local municipalities and other key stakeholders are integrated throughout program design and implementation.

Winterization

For war-affected people struggling to meet basic needs, freezing winters can be one of the biggest threats to health and survival. GER³ focuses on two main forms of support to meet their essential needs:

Delivery of Firewood: War-driven inflation, mining in forests and mobilization of able-bodied men has left many families unable to afford or collected firewood. GER³ registers the most vulnerable households and delivers firewood chopped and stacked on palettes to each address, ensuring fuel is available and accessible before the coldest days.
Insulation of Sub-Standard Homes: Average winter temperatures in Ukraine range between 17°F and 21°F. Many homes in rural areas do not effectively maintain heat, due to compromised windows, doors or roofs. GER³ provides essential repairs and insulation. These updates are long-lasting, improving energy efficiency and allowing homes to stay heated with less fuel.

As of 2026, our winterization programs have served over 8,200 Ukrainians, keeping them safe and warm.

School bomb shelter rehabilitation

Since 2022, Ukrainian schools have struggled to reopen safely. Government regulations require compliant bomb shelters before in-person learning can resume, a protective measure expected to remain in place for as long as the threat to children continues. Across frontline and border regions, most schools cannot meet that standard. As a result, learning has moved online, a modality that is disrupted by electricity outages and air raids.

For children, the cost is not only academic. Years without classmates, teachers, and the daily rhythm of school have left many isolated, anxious, and cut off from the relationships and routines that support healthy development.

GER³ rehabilitates school basements into compliant, accessible bomb shelters that double as functional learning spaces during air raid alerts. Our engineers work directly with competitively selected contractors to design and install essential features including ventilation, hydroinsulation, emergency exits and bathrooms. Accessibility built in from the start so that children with disabilities, including those using wheelchairs, can use the same shelter as their peers. Equally critical, GER³ navigates the complex legal certification process on behalf of each school, ensuring shelters are not only safe but legally cleared to reopen the building for in-person learning.

As of 2026, GER³has rehabilitated shelters for 7 schools, returning 1,700+ children to safe in-person learning. We prioritize schools serving children most at risk of being excluded from education: children with disabilities, displaced children, children in residential care, and children in communities where air alerts are constant. Every shelter rehabilitated is a school reopened, and every school reopened is hundreds of children returned to their teachers, their friends, and the safe, stable place school is meant to be.