More than 4 million people have now fled the violence in Ukraine. Over the coming weeks, the United Nations estimate that as many as 5 million refugees will be forced across the borders into neighbouring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Many of these will be children, who will experience terrible distress being separated from friends and family, their school and the community where they belong.

With such terrible disruption to the familiar places, people and routine of their lives, we are hoping to offer just a little comfort and escape, especially as they try to settle for bedtime. Starting with storybooks, every one of the 10,000 backpacks will be filled with a selection of items that are both comforting and essential, such as head torches, notepads, colouring pencils, toothbrushes, puzzles, playing cards, activity books, bags of marbles, hot water bottles, socks, hats and scarfs, reusable drinking bottles, and many other much-needed things.

From a warehouse in west Dorset (kindly loaned to us by The Poundbury Cancer Institute) groups of volunteers will be working around the clock sourcing, packing and distributing the backpacks overland through Europe to the Ukrainian border. Each of the 10,000 backpacks will be colour-coded, so they are easier to distribute on the ground: YELLOW (children aged 0-4), BLUE (ages 4-8 ) and GREEN (ages 8-12) and RED (ages 12-16 ).

Our JustGiving campaign aims to raise £75,000 so we can purchase any items that aren’t donated and cover the costs of transporting and distributing 10,000 colourful backpacks filled with useful and lovely things.

Thank you so much for supporting this urgent campaign.