Maryna Kucherenko was forced to leave Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast, with her 3-year-old daughter Myroslava, when active hostilities began in the city. Before the war, she studied in Starobilsk at a branch of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University and worked at Nova Poshta. On 1 April 2022, Maryna and her daughter were taken to Dnipro by evacuation transport after heavy shelling the day before (rockets hit neighbouring houses and damaged buildings, so she did not wait for the situation to worsen and decided to leave the city as soon as possible). Marina’s friend Valeria, who at that time was already living in the shelter of the “Good on Amur” Charitable Foundation. with her family, suggested that she also settle here.

At first, the living conditions were not very good: we had to live together with many people in the assembly hall of the building (there were no beds at that time, we slept on imitation beds made of wooden pallets used for transporting goods). At first, it was difficult because of the large number of strangers around and the living conditions that left much to be desired, but volunteers were constantly working on the building’s improvement, trying to improve the conditions for the displaced people, and later they settled them in separate rooms. Now Maryna says that staying in the shelter taught her independence, which she did not have before the war when she lived with her parents, and made her stronger to overcome all the obstacles life puts in her way.