We are raising donations in Estonia to ensure daily meals in two hospitals in Gaza City. With the support of Estonian donors, we can provide essential food aid that gives patients the strength to recover and supports doctors and nurses who are working under difficult conditions to save lives. Do not look away. Help break through hunger. Make a donation on the Estonian Refugee Council website. Registration has opened in Estonia for the new season of the Start Smart training on artificial intelligence, aimed at young people aged 15–29 with a refugee background. In Ukraine, we are launching a new entrepreneurship programme to help people affected by the full-scale war build sustainable sources of income. In Armenia, we have set up hydroponic greenhouses to help schools cope with climate change and ensure access to food in water-scarce conditions. The greenhouses also serve to strengthen children’s knowledge of the environment. Also in Armenia, four community councils were launched in August to help make the voices of people with refugee backgrounds better heard in standing up for their rights.

Estonian Refugee Council begins providing food aid in the Gaza Strip to support local hospitals and ensure daily meals for both patients and healthcare workers.  

In early August, the Estonian Refugee Council (ERC) team deployed to Zaporizhzhia oblast to deliver urgently needed assistance to residents of Bilenke, a village coping with the aftermath of a recent attack.

The Estonian Refugee Council has been chosen as the official charity partner of the British-Estonian Chamber of Commerce (BECC) for 2025, supporting the community integration and societal inclusion of people with a refugee background in Estonia.

In the fields just beyond Barvinkove, a small town in Kharkiv oblast, the late-summer sun shines over quiet pastures. From a distance, the scene looks peaceful—cows grazing slowly, a young calf nearby, the landscape seemingly untouched. But behind this stillness is a story of survival, strength, and the long journey of recovery in a community scarred by war.

Registration is now open for the entrepreneurship training programme Start Smart, organised within the framework of the employment programme UPBEAT. The training is designed for young people with refugee and migrant backgrounds, helping them strengthen their competitiveness in business and on the labour market by making use of the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence.

“When I found out I had received the funding, it gave me a real boost. It renewed my motivation to keep going with beekeeping,” says Yevhen, a lifelong beekeeper from Kharkiv region, Ukraine. For 36 years, beekeeping has been more than just a livelihood for Yevhen—it’s been a way of life. But when war came, everything changed.

The Estonian Refugee Council has become the only humanitarian organisation in the Baltic States and Poland to hold the European Commission’s Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) programme partnership certificate for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

On 8 and 9 August, the Opinion Festival took place in Paide, where we, together with the Estonian Human Rights Centre and the Office of the Gender Equality and Equal Treatment Commissioner, organised a discussion on structural racism, and Estonian Refugee Council Director Eero Janson took part in a discussion on humanitarian funding. In cooperation with the Integration Foundation, we help foster mutual understanding, trust, and civic engagement among third-country nationals through a variety of events held across Estonia. In July, we organised a summer camp in Kloogaranna for 38 children of Ukrainian frontline workers to support their well-being and develop their social skills. In Ukraine, we have provided cash-based humanitarian assistance to nearly 309,000 people. In Armenia, new self-help groups have started their work, supporting mental health and independent living. In Georgia, we are about to launch training sessions to strengthen the capacity of local NGOs and civil society organisations to better respond to various challenges. In Jordan, agricultural training for 40 Syrian refugee and local community women has been completed. As a next step, 12 of these women will receive support to establish hydroponic greenhouses on their home plots.

In the small city of Barvinkove, Kharkiv oblast, Olena and her family are rebuilding not just their farm, but their future—against the backdrop of war.