Tragedy, Recovery and the Work We Do
In early April 2025, I traveled with Dr. Liubov Koloshynska — a rehabilitation specialist from the Ukrainian UNBROKEN project — to Hiroshima for a two-day training. She was there to learn how to use RE-Gait, a Japanese robotic walking-assist device, which Peace Boat Disaster Relief (PBV) had donated to a rehabilitation center in Lviv.
The schedule was packed with demonstrations, hands-on sessions, and hospital visits. Everything was focused on learning — how to fit the device, how to select patient modes, how to monitor and adjust the rehabilitation process. It was deeply practical, technical work. But during this short visit, we were also invited to take part in something far less expected — a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had read about Hiroshima, seen photos in school books, and knew the basic facts. But standing inside that space — seeing burned school uniforms, melted glass, handwritten notes that never reached home — was something else. It was not history. It was a feeling.
For Ukrainians, unfortunately, the ruins of buildings are not unfamiliar. Every city has broken windows, shattered walls, streets forever changed. The threat of nuclear disaster is not theoretical for us either. Chernobyl is part of our past. And Russia’s nuclear rhetoric is part of our present. But this visit was not just a comparison of tragedies — it was a quiet moment of recognition. That pain, no matter when or where, shares a common language.
Walking through the museum, what struck me most was the care with which each story was preserved. Not just the damage, but the human details: a child’s lunchbox, a watch stopped at the moment of impact, a mother’s name written on a scrap of clothing. These were not numbers or statistics — they were people.
And I kept thinking: this is what our patients in Ukraine are living through right now. Most of them won’t have their stories in museums. But they, too, are living with injury, with loss, with the struggle to rebuild.
The RE-Gait training, which we returned to the next morning, suddenly felt deeper than just technology. These devices — small, quiet, robotic — are more than tools. They are about helping someone take a step they thought they had lost forever. They are about showing that support still exists, even across oceans. That someone far away cares enough to share knowledge, equipment, and encouragement.
PBV’s work has always been about more than immediate response. Whether after natural disasters in Japan or in humanitarian crises abroad, the goal is the same: to walk alongside people as they recover. Our project with UNBROKEN is exactly that — a quiet, determined act of care.
To rehabilitate someone after trauma is not just to help them physically. It is to remind them that their life is still valuable, still full of possibility. That they are not alone.
In Hiroshima, I saw how long and painful recovery can be. But I also saw a city full of life. Children laughing near the river. Trams running through clean streets. Tourists, artists, and students. It reminded me that healing doesn’t erase tragedy — it simply proves that tragedy doesn’t get the last word.
That gives me hope. Hope that Ukraine will continue to stand. Hope that our destroyed cities will be rebuilt. Hope that people like Dr. Koloshynska will help others walk again — and that the work we do at PBV is part of that path forward.
Right now, peace and full recovery may feel out of reach. But one day, this war will also become part of history — not our daily reality. Just like the patients at UNBROKEN who slowly learn to walk again, we, too, will rebuild step by step. And one day, our pain will live not in sirens and headlines, but in memory — remembered, honored, and overcome. That’s why this project and PBV’s work is important for me as a Ukrainian.
