The Lviv organization “Nazareth” helps alcohol, drug, and gambling addicts. Recently, the community has become a grantee of Zagoriy Foundation.
The organization started operating back in 2006. Since then, about 5,000 people have undergone rehabilitation, including the veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war (since 2015).
Having observed the impact of war on people’s mental health since 2014, representatives of the organization decided to continue their activities on February 24, 2022. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 96 people were undergoing rehabilitation at Nazareth.
However, this is not the only area that the community has been involved in. Since the first day of the full-scale war, the organization has been providing shelter to displaced people. In six months, Nazareth welcomed 410 residents. Some stayed for only a few days, while others for several months. During this time, the community even helped 200 people to move to safe places in Poland, Italy, and Germany.
Currently, Nazareth hosts about 130 residents. Half of them are displaced people, while the rest are those undergoing rehabilitation.
In addition to housing, food, and medical care, the organization has created a spiritual and psychological program for displaced people to adapt in a peaceful environment. “When I first arrived at the shelter, I felt so devastated and broken. Now I feel like I’m coming back to myself,” Halyna, a displaced person from Mariupol, shares her impressions of the program.
Of course, such a scale of activities required many hands. Nazareth representatives admit that for the first two months, they worked non-stop.
It was only in mid-April that the employees started to gradually return to their usual schedule.
Now, Nazareth, like everyone else, is waiting for victory and striving for as many addicts as possible to become free.
