Vlak voor de grootschalige Russische invasie van 2022 verbleven ruim 105.000 kinderen in residentiële instellingen, meer dan waar dan ook in Europa. Van de kinderen die vandaag nog in dit soort instellingen wonen, heeft 78 procent een beperking. Daarmee kent Oekraïne (samen met Belarus) het hoogste percentage kinderen in institutionele zorg van heel Europa: tussen de 573 en 694 op elke 100.000 kinderen, tegenover een Europees gemiddelde van 277 en een wereldwijd gemiddelde van 102 (UNICEF, 2024).

“Ik geloof er echt in dat échte verandering pas ontstaat als we niet alleen ‘helpen’, maar juist kennis delen en van elkaar leren.”

Voor Andra staat één ding vast: goede zorg verleen je nooit alleen.

M-Power project conducted two international surveys-one targeting parents of children with disabilities and another involving professionals working in early childhood intervention and family support services.

The changes happening right now in the field of care for people with disabilities in Ukraine, especially inside those terrible institutions, the internats, are moving fast, and it’s genuinely moving to witness: seeing this pace of transformation makes you want to help even more.

Together with GGZ Noord-Holland-Noord, SOFT tulip has introduced the Active Recovery Triad (ART) approach to Ukraine through a peer-to-peer training programme for staff working in residential care institutions (internats) in the Zakarpattia region.

174 parents took part in the survey, fairly evenly split across the four countries (24–27% per country). The questionnaire was translated into Dutch, Italian, Romanian, and Bulgarian, and was developed through a 13-step process, from defining the purpose and themes to piloting and collecting feedback from all partner countries.

Petra Moonen is a manager at Parnassia Groep and a long-time volunteer with SOFT tulip, where she has dedicated more than 15 years to improving mental health care in Ukraine.

Can you redesign an entire care system during a war? This week in Ukraine, that’s exactly what we’re working on.

The SOFT tulip team recently held the first in-person Active Recovery Triad (ART) exchange session at the Turya Remeta Boarding Institution in Zakarpattia, Ukraine.

In December 2025, our SOFT tulip delegation travelled to Lublin, Poland, as part of the AMUSE project — a European partnership focused on inclusive education and AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) in Ukraine. What we saw over those four days reshaped how we think about our own work.

Ieke van Lammeren, director of SOFT tulip, and Anna Kukuruza from the Ukrainian Association of Early Intervention shared their experience during a panel discussion at a Wilde Ganzen networking event hosted at Ukraine House Rotterdam.

40 people. 4 countries. 1 mission: recently the SOFT tulip team participated in the first in-person multiplier event of the M-POWER project (Erasmus+) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

On 19 April 2026 we organized charity race — Run for Ukrainian Kids. This event took place as part of Wilde Week — a nationwide initiative in the Netherlands.

Join SOFT tulip, Wilde Ganzen, and the Ukrainian Running Club Amsterdam for a meaningful charity run: Run for Ukraine.

Last week, we reported on a special collaboration — and on 7 November 2025, a day of action was held in support of Ukraine, organised by Groot Nieuws Radio and the Christian Platform Eastern Europe (CPOE).

Between October 22 – 24, the SOFT tulip team took part in the event of our partners EASPD Brussels in their event “Empowering Families, Enabling Self-Determination: Rethinking Support at Every Stage of Life.”

This year we had a particularly special edition as we bid farewell to Eric Bloemkolk his role as director ánd together looked ahead to the new strategic direction of SOFT tulip towards 2030.

At the beginning of October, together with Cordaan, we co-organised visits to two specialized schools in Amsterdam — Drostenburg School and Koetsveld School — both for children aged 4 to 12.

The first interview is with Hanneke Vrieling.

Dutch version and English version