Ukraine Refugee Support Fund

Help the Ukrainian Refugees

If you can, please consider supporting this important work. All funds will be used for direct support of Ukraine and Russian refugees seeking safety in Poland.  Thank you!

More Information on the War and the Refugee Assistance Efforts

The Zen Garland Board of Directors and the Teachers’ Circle strongly want to support humanitarian efforts in Poland to provide immediate local help to Ukrainian refugees, mostly women, mothers, and grandmothers with children.  

We are fortunate to have Dharma River’s Zen priest, Rev. Anna Myosen Nacher, in Kraków, Poland, where a majority of the refugees are arriving from Ukraine. Myosen is a university digital culture professor, and a humanitarian activist in Kraków. She has been sending daily updates about the current situation and needs, and in Zoom contact with Kisho and Baishin. 

Polish government agencies and NGOs are meeting the very basic needs of arriving refugees — shelter, food, health care and new entitlements. Rev. Myosen and her family and students are building a network of volunteers and local organizations to better coordinate longer term resettlement needs from sustaining contact with remaining loved ones in Ukraine to new language skills, transportation, and efforts to find work. Once the initial traumatic shock subsides, these displaced peoples will have to accept creating a new way of life. This is quite different from immediate disaster relief work. 

Rev. Myosen is reporting that two weeks into the Russian invasion on Ukraine, 2,5 million refugees fled to Poland, almost 150 thousand have arrived in Kraków. The city has reached its capacity. Organized official help includes free public transport and health care for refugees, shelters in refurbished former shopping malls and stadiums, and distribution of food and clothing donated by many citizens. 

The situation is changing daily, and so do the needs of the refugees. Elderly people, youth, and mothers with children came with only their most essential belongings. They need clothes and mid- and long-term accommodation; children need toys and day care activities; some people need laptops and cell phones, so they can continue their education or seek employment. 

The funds will secure the most direct and immediate needs, which are monitored daily within the wider network of volunteers hosting refugees in their homes, local communities and organizations (including two refugees centers run by Ukrainian immigrant community), and groups in social media dedicated specifically to organizing help 

We know there will not be a solution to this war quickly. And many homes and neighborhoods have been destroyed. Return to Ukraine is uncertain. Rev. Myosen is preparing mid and long-term help and supports.  

Rev Myosen is currently involved in different local projects: 

• Meeting and making ongoing relationships with arriving refugees.  

• Creating sustainable networks linking refugees with local individuals to help with longer term resettlement needs.  

• Helping Ukrainian students at the University where she teaches to contact and reunite with their families.  

• She and her partner have created an Earth Garden – Biotop at their farm: a respite for refugees in the Slovakian mountains close to the Polish border. The respite will offer lodging (in collaboration with local partners), healthy living in a simple, peaceful setting,  educational courses for permaculture gardening, nature-based and contemplative practices  for families with children and individuals. 

Rev. Anna Myosen Nacher

A novice Zen priestess, Myosen has been practicing with the Zen Garland Order since 2019. She is an Associate professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland) specializing in digital culture, communication studies, and contemporary art. She taught one semester as a visiting professor at Winona State University. That was when her path crossed with the Dharma River and she happily confluences with it ever since. She likes orchids and clouds. The Mississippi will not let her go.