At 7.45am on 23 January 2024, a Russian missile destroyed the facilities of Kyiv's oldest football club, Lokomotyv FC, just 15 minutes before the first children were due to arrive for their morning training session. Tragically, a sportsman already on site lost his life.

Faced with this situation, the City of Paris wanted to show its solidarity with the Ukrainian capital and more particularly with Lokomotyv, a club renowned for its strong social commitment, particularly to children displaced by the war.

On 21 November 2024, the Paris City Council voted to award a grant of nearly €120,000 to The Small Projects Team to help rebuild the club's infrastructure and enable children to continue playing football in optimum conditions (read the City's press release : http://paris.fr/pages/une-aide-pour-la-renovation-du-centre-sportif-lokomotiv-a-kyiv-29333).

This programme will enable the club to replace its bus, which was destroyed in the bombing, renovate the changing rooms' sanitary facilities, and equip more than 400 children with shirts, shoes and balls.

Symbolising the strength of this commitment from Paris and France, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, Pierre Rabadan, Deputy Mayor for Sport and Eric Lejoindre, Mayor of the 18th arrondissement, Frédéric Rousseau, representing the French Embassy in Ukraine, accompanied by Olena Govorova, Deputy Mayor of Kyiv in charge of sport, launched the programme on Wednesday 4 December at the Lokomotyv field in Kyiv. During the visit, the director of Lokomotyv, Oleksandr Yegorov, and Nataliia Piskova, representative of The Small Projects Team in Kyiv, were able to show them the future impact of the City of Paris' aid.

We are proud to have been chosen as the City of Paris' operational partner in Ukraine and to be managing this project on the ground alongside the Lokomotyv teams. This choice, a sign of the City of Paris' confidence in The Small Projects Team, bears witness to the quality of our organisation, our operational skills and the commitment of our volunteers.