Food Bank agri-food services provide a lifeline for Ukrainian refugees and Moldovan host families

Larisa and her three-year-old daughter Lada stand in the queue in front of a distribution truck. The volunteers hand around packed boxes containing rice, wheat flour, lentils, beans, a bottle of sunflower oil, a jar of jam, iodized salt, sugar, and tins.

“We left everything behind in Odessa. It’s been difficult to start over, especially with a small child,” explains Larisa as she picks up the brown food box.  

Dozens of Ukrainian refugees like Larisa came to collect the packages distributed by the Food Bank, World Vision’s local partner, made possible with the support of the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC).

“Once the war broke out, we assisted refugees as well as the vulnerable Moldovan families,” shares Oleg Paraschiv, Food Bank’s Executive Director. The local organization also gathers and distributes food supplies with a low shelf life from stores to social services.

Based on the latest UN report, 931 million tonnes of food are wasted globally each year, with 61 percent originating from households, 26 percent from food services, and 13 percent from retailers. As a result, 17% of world food production may be wasted.

Paraschiv adds, “Until the war, we recovered products from stores or from the agri-food chain and offered them to social services. We were collecting food with a short storage period and turning them into meals.”

The partnership with World Vision helped us grow, provided us financial support to help refugees, and trained us on child protection, psychosocial programming as well as supply chain management.

“These meals were distributed in nursing homes, foster care centres for children, and adult care facilities for people with disabilities”, he explains. For years, the organization has been working to decrease food waste and prevent hunger.

“Through our partnership with World Vision, we reached over 6,000 families and helped over 20,000 individuals with food resources and hygiene items. During wintertime, we supported more than 1,000 families with duvets, bleaching sets, and shoes”, he adds.

Axenia was among the last to collect food and hygiene packages. She stood patiently as she remembered her late son whom she lost at a young age. Now, in her seventies, she lives alone in a poor Moldovan village, surviving on a meager pension that barely covers her monthly needs.

The food box will get her through another month, supplying her with necessities she can no longer buy on her own. Her tears expressed her gratitude as she was greeted warmly by Andrei, a World Vision staff member.

“I am not sure how I survived for years. I lost my family and my child,” Axenia tells Andrei. “The meagre pension in Moldova makes it difficult for me to survive. I would only say thank you from the bottom of my heart to the good people who help us.”

“The partnership with World Vision helped us grow, provided us financial support to help refugees, and trained us on child protection, psychosocial programming as well as supply chain management,” shares Paraschiv.

He concludes, “I can only express my gratitude towards this partnership. Together we provided primary needs for the people who directly or indirectly suffered from the war.”

To date, World Vision has assisted over 160,000 people in Moldova, including Ukrainian refugees and host families, with more than 414,000 receiving food assistance.

Story by Laurentia Jora, Communications Officer I Photos by Chris Lete and Eugene Combo/WorldVision