The One Proposal provides a coordinated, unified response from the Society of Jesus to the Ukraine crisis. Through this initiative, JRS and Xavier Network, which coordinate the global response from the Society of Jesus, will accompany, serve, and advocate for refugees fleeing conflict in Ukraine over the course of the next three years. This response will be coordinated by JRS Europe and implemented jointly with 23 JRS Country Offices, the Society of Jesus in Europe, local civil society, NGOs, and the Xavier Network.

The priorities: to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate refugees

The One Proposal will address the needs of forcibly displaced Ukrainians across Europe, from immediate humanitarian response and emergency assistance in Ukraine and its neighbours, to long-term programmes to promote and integrate refugees from Portugal to Poland. It will benefit Internally displaced people, refugees of Ukrainian nationality and refugees of other nationalities, displaced by the conflict in Ukraine.

The response is structured around five key strategic objectives that aim to put people at the centre of the intervention:

• Welcome: ensure refugees are welcomed across Europe by accompanying them and listening to their stories, and by walking together without prejudice and without fear.
• Protect: defend the inalienable rights of displaced people, ensuring their fundamental freedoms, and respecting their dignity.
• Promote: safeguard the individual and social conditions for access, choice, growth, and human development for those displaced by the conflict by encouraging programmes which involve refugees as active protagonists.
• Integrate: foment social interaction, inclusion, and integration, aiming to reduce economic and social marginalisation, and support more cohesive, inclusive, and robust societies.
• Institutional Strengthening: scale-up our strength, capacities, and networks to provide a large-scale high-quality response to the needs of refugees.

These strategic objectives will guide the activities in all sectors, such as shelter, accommodation & non-food items; emergency aid, relief & assistance; legal assistance; health; psychosocial support; education; livelihoods; awareness & advocacy; integration & peacebuilding; and capacity building.

A structured plan that is already being implemented

Since the conflict began, JRS and partners have been on the frontline of the humanitarian response. We are present in Ukraine, where displaced people are provided with shelter in Lviv, emergency humanitarian assistance, and safe transportation out of the country. We continue to assist Ukrainian women and children fled to Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia with accommodation, essential items, legal assistance, psychosocial support and education. JRS offices in the ‘countries of secondary movement’ across Europe have also been providing welcome, legal, accommodation, and employment assistance, basic goods, and other services to refugees.

The One Proposal aims to structure and coordinate such response, and it is the result of extensive research, consultation, and analysis with partners and refugees themselves. Read the full document and the Annual Report.

Originally published on JRS Europe.