LWF staff from multi-purpose cash assistance centers across Poland, established to support Ukrainian refugees, gather in Bytom in October 2022 for training in community-based psychosocial support. Photo: LWF/Albin Hillert
Looking back at a successful response to Ukrainian refugee crisis as LWF closes its country program in Poland
(LWI) - The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) formally concluded its World Service operations in Poland on 31 December 2025, marking almost four years of collaboration with the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland (ECACP). The LWF member church will continue providing assistance, through its diaconal programs, to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who fled the war at home.
“This response was never only about delivering assistance,” says Allan Calma, LWF Global Humanitarian Coordinator. “It was about restoring dignity, building trust, and standing alongside people at a moment of profound loss. Together with our member church, we reached tens of thousands of refugees, strengthened communities, and built relationships that will outlast this program,” he notes.
Between 2022 and 2025, the response reached tens of thousands of refugees across seven cities. Nearly 70,000 people received multipurpose cash assistance, enabling families to meet their most urgent needs with dignity while supporting local markets. More than 135,000 psychosocial support sessions were delivered, alongside education, child-safe spaces, language learning, and integration activities.
This response was never only about delivering assistance. It was about restoring dignity, building trust, and standing alongside people at a moment of profound loss,
Allan Calma, LWF Global Humanitarian Coordinator
The Poland office was formally established in May 2022, but the action began several months earlier on 24 February, the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. European nations began welcoming Ukrainian refugees with open arms. “There was an overwhelming show of solidarity toward the women and children fleeing the war,” LWF Regional Secretary for Europe Rev. Dr Ireneusz Lukas, recalls. People opened their homes, donated clothes or household items, and received the crowds arriving at the border with warm food and water bottles.
Swift response by local faith actors
The Lutheran church was among the first to provide such emergency services. Volunteers organized soup kitchens and transport, while parish facilities and private homes of congregation members became temporary houses for the refugees.
LWF Program Executive for Member Church Projects Rebekka Meissner recalls the initial fact-finding visit to the Polish Ukrainian border. “We encountered long lines of very tired, exhausted and incredibly sad women, a few grandmothers but mostly mothers with young children, being met by the generosity and enthusiasm of volunteers.”
The experience in Poland reaffirmed a core humanitarian lesson: local faith actors are often the first to respond and the last to remain. Before any humanitarian agencies arrived on the ground, ECACP had set up its own refugee response. Among the services provided by the churches were transport and safe spaces for the refugees, in particular the vulnerable women and children who were at risk of falling into the hands of predators. “Churches are very well connected, so they knew where the refugees were, and they acted quickly,” says Calma, “Other humanitarian organizations, including United Nations (UN) agencies, followed the lead of our member church in identifying refugee concentrations and directing humanitarian assistance accordingly.”
Nearly 70,000 people received multipurpose cash assistance, more than 135,000 psychosocial support sessions were provided
As the war intensified and the numbers of refugees rose, World Service joined this effort, as the church’s capacity for support was stretched by its own response and preparations for the 2023 Thirteenth LWF Assembly in Kraków.
Recognizing both the scale of need and the strength of local church engagement, LWF established Fundacja LWF w Polsce, headquartered in Warsaw, in close partnership with ECACP. In addition, six community centers were set up across the country, initially as refugee registration points for emergency cash assistance that later evolved into spaces where refugees could access support, learn new skills, build community while waiting to return home.
ECACP Presiding Bishop Jerzy Samiec expressed gratitude for “the openness and generosity of the global Lutheran communion” in supporting the joint refugee response. “Refugees who have been forced to flee from the war are in very difficult physical, emotional, material and psychological conditions,” he noted. “When we accept them in Poland, we should provide assistance in all these spheres. In our homes, we show them understanding, support and love. But we are also aware that they need finances to live, which is why the multipurpose cash assistance project is so important and timely,” he said.
When we accept them [refugees] in Poland, we should provide assistance in all these spheres. In our homes, we show them understanding, support and love,
Presiding Bishop Jerzy Samiec, Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland
Security and hope
For the mothers, who suddenly found themselves in the role of single parents, the community centers also provided childcare when they had to take care of administration matters or medical appointments. An annual highlight for many of the refugees were the Ukrainian Christmas markets, where they were able to sell traditional crafts, perform songs and dances, and share hopes that they would be able to celebrate the next year in their home country.
Looking back at the last three-and-a-half years, the LWF Poland country team leader, Dr Iwona Baraniec, reiterated the impact of the work with Ukrainian refugees. “We are ending our activities with the belief that we have provided real help and equipped people with new tools that will make it easier for them to function independently in the country,” she said. "We met people who suddenly found themselves in difficult life circumstances. We gave them hope and showed them that no one is alone in this situation,” she added.
Over 70 percent of the staff working for LWF were refugees themselves, giving them a sense of purpose in difficult circumstances, as well as strengthening the response that the centers could provide. “I had to leave my home, my job [....] I was forced to leave my country to protect my children,” said Olga, who worked in a state bank in Odessa before the war and had been assisting internally displaced people from the Donbass region since 2014. She stressed that as a refugee, she had the best understanding of the situation facing the people that LWF was supporting. At the same time, being able to work helped her and her family, not only financially: “This job makes me feel needed,” Olga said.
The response was made possible by financial contributions from across the LWF communion and beyond. A total of EUR 14.4 million was raised from 32 donors including LWF member churches, related agencies, ecumenical partners, United Nations (UN) agencies and private donors. In addition, around EUR 10 million worth of multipurpose cash assistance was distributed to refugees through LWF’s long standing partnership with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
“With this generous show of solidarity, a humanitarian response was built rooted in trust, proximity, and shared responsibility — combining global humanitarian capacity with local knowledge and presence.” Calma says.
Between 2022 and 2025, the response reached tens of thousands of refugees across seven cities. Nearly 70,000 people received multipurpose cash assistance, enabling families to meet their most urgent needs with dignity while supporting local markets. More than 135,000 psychosocial support sessions were delivered, alongside education, child-safe spaces, language learning, and integration activities.
LWF and its partners distributed food, hygiene products and baby care products to Ukrainian refugees in Krakow and other cities in Poland. Photo: LWF/L. Gillabert
One of the enrolment centers for multipurpose cash assistance that later evolved into spaces where refugees could access support, learn new skills, build community while waiting to return home. Photo: LWF Poland
The country program’s official closing ceremony in Warsaw was attended by church leaders, LWF staff and refugee representatives. Photo: LWF Poland
Model of humanitarian and church partnership
The collaboration between LWF World Service and ECACP proved decisive. While LWF brought humanitarian systems, coordination capacity, and access to international funding, the church offered trusted relationships, community networks, and a constant presence on the ground. This partnership enabled a rapid and people-centered response — from navigating legal and administrative processes to identifying priority locations and reaching people often missed by larger systems.
It also served to strengthen collaboration among different LWF Communion Office departments, and between the LWF and ECACP. “The experience we have gained [....] is truly unique within the global Lutheran communion,” says Regional Secretary Lukas. “It is an example others can learn from - a model for how churches and humanitarian actors can work hand in hand. We now know better what works in such crises, and also what we might do differently next time.”
While the LWF World Service office in Poland is closing, the response itself continues. Support for refugees remains led by ECACP, rooted in local relationships and structures that have been present since the beginning. LWF remains committed to accompanying this work as a partner, not as an external actor.
As the war in Ukraine continues, the response in Poland stands as a powerful example of what is possible when global humanitarian expertise and local faith-based leadership come together — delivering impact, strengthening communities, and sustaining hope in the midst of crisis.
We understood in a very tangible way what holistic mission truly means: when service, theology, and advocacy come together as one coherent expression of faith and solidarity.
Rev. Dr Anne Burghardt, LWF General Secretary
LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Anne Burghardt reiterated this one-LWF approach in her message delivered during the official closing ceremony attended by church leaders, staff and refugee representatives last November in Warsaw. “Despite uncertainty and many challenges, together we built something meaningful and lasting. Rarely in our history have we seen such a wide-reaching humanitarian response emerge so quickly - the fruit of our shared witness as one LWF family. Through this experience, we understood in a very tangible way what holistic mission truly means: when service, theology, and advocacy come together as one coherent expression of faith and solidarity.”
