On a Thursday morning the war began and with it the gradual fleeing of all the living and innocent from the battlefields and their surroundings. The fleeing were mostly women, children and the elderly, who had managed to pack very few belongings, yet some of course, could not leave their animal companions to the war and took them with them.
But no one in the neighboring countries thought of them. In short-term accommodation the refugees are sometimes not allowed to take the animals with them and therefore the last resort is usually to place them in already overcrowded shelters. But practice has shown that this is not always the case. People are still willing to help and although they do not have a place for a refugee in their home, they can sometimes at least take in their animals in solidarity. This can be both short-term and long-term. They have the space to adopt them until the refugee gets settled, stabilized and can take the cat or dog back into their care.
So far, the solution to these situations has mostly been in the form of advertisements on social media or informally through websites focused on adopting animals in our country. However, the process has been lengthy and often complicated. As a digital designer, I would like to change that and contribute my efforts to solving this problem.
The app I created helps Ukrainian refugees find either temporary or long-term homes for their pets. It directly connects volunteers who can adopt an animal with Ukrainian refugees, i.e. pet owners. I made the app as simple and intuitive as possible to make the connection as easy as possible. The final path for both users is always a joint chat to communicate in, which I designed, given the situation and language barriers, to have a translator built into the app that automatically translates each message into the language of the person reading it.
The app does not only relieve Ukrainian refugees, but also helps overburdened shelters, preventing a surge of homeless animal population.
