Durango resident Suzanne Horwich, who founded Artists Giving Back four years ago, returned last week from her latest trip to Ukraine where she worked with Ukrainian soldiers wounded in the war with Russia.
Horwich is used to working with refugees fleeing war and conflict from around the world. During this trip, she was working specifically with wounded soldiers.
She spent two weeks visiting hospitals and resilience centers in towns like Uzhhorod in west Ukraine, giving hospitalized soldiers the opportunity to practice art therapy. In Ukraine, she said, it’s common for children to be offered art therapy, but that’s not common at all for adults.
Some of the soldiers she worked with had recently had limbs amputated, she said. Others were dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. She also worked with teachers who provide emotional support for displaced children.
“The amputee soldiers – watching them figure out how to paint when they don’t have an arm or they don’t have fingers was really fascinating, because you know what? They figured it out,” she said. “It was pretty powerful.”
One soldier fitted a paintbrush into the gauze around their stump, she said. Another soldier who had lost his fingers managed to grasp a paintbrush between his remaining knuckles.
Horwich said the entire population is traumatized from constant air raid sirens. Families live in fear of their sons and husbands being drafted to the front lines.
She said Ukraine isn’t drafting men with three or more children under the age of 18, and young men aren’t being drafted until they turn 24. Draft enforcement officers walk the streets, asking young men to present their exemption papers. Parents send their children elsewhere in Europe to avoid them being drafted.
“It was amazing and really eye-opening, and very different from the work I do in Greece,” she said. “With my Greek refugees, they’re escaping environmental conditions, human rights violations, war, starvation. There’s a big contrast between (that and) a country that’s actively at war.”
She said Ukrainians are resilient, although there is a concern among them the rest of the world has forgotten them.
Many Ukrainians from bigger cities are taking refuge in Uzhhorod because it is nestled in a mountain range near the border with Slovakia and Hungary within a mountain range, and it’s hard for Russia to drop bombs on the town.
More apartments are being built in Uzhhorod to accommodate the influx of refugees, and people are temporarily being housed in schools and universities, she said.
Worries the rest of the world has moved on from the Russia-Ukraine war are justified, Horwich said. Aid from humanitarian organizations has dropped off.
“It’s sad to see they don’t feel they have the same support,” she said. “There’s so much going on in the world, (nongovernmental organizations) can’t be everywhere.”
That’s one reason why Horwich has committed to providing help abroad and not domestically, she said.
“I get asked a lot of questions about, ‘Why am I not working in America? Why am I not helping immigrants here?’ And the truth is, this foundation was set up with the mission of helping displaced refugees around the world,” she said.
Over the past few years, she has worked with refugees who fled Gaza to Greece before the conflict with Israel escalated, and she has met Iranians who fled the regime in Iran.
cburney@durangoherald.com
