The nonprofit Razom has been focused on improving health and well-being in Ukraine for the past decade, since well before the ongoing war, says CEO Dora Chomiak. But after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Razom’s work multiplied exponentially. It went from being an all-volunteer group that raised and spent around $200,000 a year to employing a staff of about 75 people spread across the U.S. and Ukraine, dispensing $100 million in aid.
During the conflict, Razom has used that money to donate medical supplies to Ukrainian hospitals, operate six mental-health centers across the country, and support frontline medics. Recently, it provided a handful of Ukrainian-made mobile medical units for use near the front lines, so medics can stabilize critically wounded patients without waiting hours for air transportation to evacuate them.
As Chomiak sees it, Razom’s special sauce is setting up the Ukrainian health system for long-lasting growth through training sessions and partnerships with physicians from across the world. For example, Razom partners with U.S. surgeons who travel to Ukraine to perform complex surgeries and train Ukrainian medical students on how to do those procedures in the future. Along with her colleagues, Chomiak—a New Yorker born to Ukrainian parents, who previously co-founded an independent news incubator in Ukraine in the 1990s—also advocates for continued support for Ukraine from U.S. lawmakers, in hopes of keeping the momentum going. “We’re not a Band-Aid,” Chomiak says, but rather a group fighting for sustainable change.
