«We believe in you:» how fighters on the front line wear drawings by unknown children under their bulletproof vests

Volunteers collect drawings to pass on to the Armed Forces, the State Emergency Service, doctors and the SAR.

This is a project of gratitude to our modern Heroes, from Ukrposhta, the Tsil Charitable Foundation and the #YThankYouSUU movement. Within the framework of this project, every Ukrainian, big and small, can express their gratitude to modern heroes by sending a drawing or a postcard, which will be handed over to the Armed Forces, the State Emergency Service, doctors and the SRO.

Our guest is the president of the «Tsil» charity foundation Yulian Poburko.

Yulian Poburko: We launched a campaign together with Ukrposhta, called «Thank the Heroes.» The heroes are the military, the SES, and military medics. In the first days of the war, we distributed humanitarian aid and the military asked us to «give us drawings.» At first we did not understand why the military wanted drawings. We started by asking people who were transporting humanitarian aid from Italy and Poland to ask others to also send over drawings.

The military is very happy with each drawing. We received a lot of feedback from the military from one particular drawing — they told us how they were in battle with that picture, and when they pulled it out from under the bulletproof vest, oh, how emotional they felt. What they understood was who they were fighting for. They understood that they were fighting for the future.

At one point, we realized that we could not not pursue this initiative globally and on a larger scale.

• We’re able to provide our heroes with 500-1000 drawings, but we need to collect 500,000.

We handed over one of the first drawings to a soldier, who told us that it said «We believe in you.» He says it’s such an unimaginable source of strength. When you are exhausted and you can barely stand on your feet, you receive this picture and see that a child who does not know you, has never seen you, wrote to you that they believe in you… it is an incredible source of strength.

You can go to any Ukrposhta branch in Ukraine, take an envelope, a stamp, and insert your drawing. Then, write which hero you want to send this drawing to, whether to a doctor or DSNS. The children have drawn for everyone. 

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