Who are Starenki?
Starenki is a charity foundation that has been helping lonely elderly people in difficult life circumstances since 2017.
Starenki is a community of like-minded people who care about the life of older people and the topic of old age in Ukraine.
Starenki is an expert organization that brings together civil society, business and government to improve the lives of older people in Ukraine.
Starenki is:
₴70+ mio
Funds raised
500+
Volunteers
80 000+
Food packages
19 000+
Friends of project
150
Cities and villages
Starenki started as a volunteer project in 2015 and has come a long way to become a systemic foundation that provides assistance to lonely older people in 10 regions of Ukraine. Starenki has a developed network of local partners, a community of donors and volunteers, and a professional team. We believe that the lives of older people in our country can be improved, and that we can do it together. That is why we continue our work, expand and develop.
«Throughout our growth, Starenki’s mission has evolved and now we see it as follows: we unite society to improve the well-being of older people in Ukraine and form a conscious and responsible attitude of Ukrainians towards old age.
At the same time, our principles have not changed. As a team, we are guided by sensitivity in our work with older people. We adhere to the principle of progressive development: we are constantly learning, acquiring new skills and following the trends in our sphere. Starenki is a transparent, responsible organization that operates exclusively without cash. We have successfully passed audits, including during wartime, and make regular reports because the trust of our community is important to us. Read more about our principles, values, and mission on the About page, and view our reports and other foundation’s documents on the Documents and reporting page»
Varvara Tertychna
Starenki Principal CEO
Direct help
Why it matters. According to a HelpAge report in 2022, about 40% of older people in Ukraine do not have enough money to buy the food or medicine they need. Starenki started with food aid for seniors in Kyiv so that they had enough money to pay for utilities or medicines from their pensions.
What we have already done. Since the inception, we have delivered more than 63,000 aid packages to cities and villages in Ukraine and continue to expand our support together with our partners in the regions.
Who and how we help. We take care of lonely older people with small pensions, who have no family and are registered at the territorial social service centers of their city or at charitable organizations such as Caritas units in the regions. The Foundation provides older people with various kinds of aid: food packages, household packages, warm kits and personal hygiene products.
We have a lot of requests, so we encourage you to join us with your donations and volunteering. We are also looking for support from the corporate sector, so your company can become a donor, volunteer or ambassador of the Foundation.
Gratitude from Alla Oleksandrivna, Kyiv
I call to thank you! I usually don’t like to compliment – but I will do it for your young people. Please don’t think there’s something wrong, in my 72 I am adequate. And I want to say your volunteers are the only ones whose gifts do not look like handouts to retirees. Packages are thoughtfully prepared and useful. And they can really be called help. Because often, any gifts for seniors look humiliating and affect the sense of dignity.
It seems to me that your intentions are absolutely sincere. And I’m happy that there are still such young admirable people. Be sure to pass my words to them!
Gratitude from Nadiia Oleksiivna, Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk region
I’m grateful for the help I received, because I don’t often get to treat myself to goodies, and here is a whole bag of food.
Gratitude from Hanna Mykhailivna, Chervonohrad, Lviv region
It’s so nice to feel that there are good people who just do important things, even when you don’t expect them from anyone.
Advocacy
Our desire to make a systemic impact on ageing in Ukraine is unwavering, and that is why we started working in the advocacy direction. This means that we expand our vision of the role of seniors in society and strive to change attitudes and stereotypes about older people, co-creating an age-friendly society. Read more about our work in this direction and the main global trends on the topic of older people on our Advocacy page.
More about Advocacy
Social events
The World Health Organization states that loneliness seriously threatens people’s physical and psychological health, as well as the well-being of society. Therefore, the organization has established a Commission on Social Connection to make the issue of loneliness recognised and work to reduce it.
Our step towards reducing loneliness among older people is social events. Starenki’s social events are our traditional tea parties for older people who want to socialize. Not only our volunteers join the organization of the event, but also businesses — corporate sponsors, cafes, restaurants, pie shops, etc.
Starenki’s volunteers are mostly young people, so our tea parties look like a real intergenerational dialogue. Just look, what a joy our tea parties bring to older people.
Tea party is a holiday that needs no official date. This is a holiday that the Foundation’s volunteers organize on their own for active lonely older people. We prepare an entertainment program and our partners treat them to delicious food, children or teenagers prepare cards with kind words and gifts.
Alla Vnukova
Tea Party Coordinator in Kyiv
Communities
Population ageing tendency indicates that in the near future older people will make up 30% of our country’s population. However, most people do not notice seniors and do not know about their problems. That is why we believe it is important to encourage people to create age-friendly communities around them. The Foundation supports the creation of age-friendly communities in all parts of Ukraine. We are ready to strengthen the local public sector and your ideas for supporting older people.
Volunteers are the heart and soul of Starenki, our driving force and the most important component of the Foundation’s work, because it is the volunteers who deliver our food and hygiene aid to older people, provide sweets for our tea parties and delight everyone with their creativity.
All our volunteers are not random people. Everyone has been brought to us by their own story, and everyone who has spent some time with us is changing. It is impossible not to change after communicating with our beloved seniors…
During the existence of Starenki, more than 500 people volunteered with us!
Join our community of volunteers and let’s bring a little care and joy to our wonderful seniors together.
Our Volunteers say
Video about Starenki
Partnerships
There are more than 8 million pensioners of old age in Ukraine. Almost 4 million of them need help because they receive very low pensions. This is a large need that no foundation or even government can meet. However, by combining the efforts of non-profit organizations, business, and the government, and by activating communities, we can improve the situation of older people.
Our foundation has 26 partner local organizations which help us deliver our assistance to lonely older people on the ground. We continue to actively seek new partnerships to mutually reinforce and increase the volume of assistance.
We also have partners among socially responsible businesses, international donors and associations who regularly support us. We are convinced that more interactions between sectors bring us closer to our mission.
Maria Novokshchenova, Starenki Managing Director, with Gevorg Sargsyan, World Bank Country Manager for Ukraine
