We’re Going Back: Our 8th Trip to Ukraine, and Why This One Feels Different

By Carlos López, Global Programs Director — May 1st 2026

When Tom Verner first booked a trip to the Polish-Ukrainian border in the spring of 2022, we had no idea it would become the defining chapter of Magicians Without Borders’ recent history. We thought maybe we’d do one trip. Two at most. The war would end. The world would help Ukraine rebuild. We’d be part of that first wave of response, and then move on.

Four years later, the war has not ended. The world has, largely, moved on. And we are getting on another plane.

This May, Tom and I are traveling to Ukraine for the eighth time — a 21-day journey through Krakow, Kyiv, Lviv. Every stop on this itinerary has meaning. Every stop has faces attached to it.

Kyiv: Deepening What We’ve Built

You cannot overstate what Mariana means to our work in Kyiv. She’s a school teacher by profession and a tireless connector by nature — and she has helped us organize two of our previous trips to the capital, opening doors into schools, orphanages, and community organizations that we never could have accessed on our own. This trip, we’re going to spend time with her not just as a logistics partner, but as a friend. We’ll walk through the Pyrohiv openair museum together and remember that Ukraine is a country of extraordinary culture and beauty, not only suffering.

The performance schedule in Kyiv is dense. We’ll do two primary school shows and a workshop for younger students; two more shows for older kids; a visit to ELEOS, a shelter for mothers and children displaced from their homes by the war; and a workshop at the “Our Kids” orphanage, where Mariana has again opened the door for us.

But the show I know will stay with me longest — even before we’ve arrived — is the one at the National Cancer Institute, at a place called Dacha House. It’s where children receiving cancer treatment stay with their families. These kids are fighting two impossible things at once. What can two magicians do? Less than we wish we could. But we’ve learned, trip after trip, that the
gift of a single hour of pure, genuine laughter — the hour where a child is just a child again, and not a patient, and not a refugee — has a value that’s hard to measure and impossible to overstate.

Lviv: The Education Chapter Is Back

Two trips ago, we visited 3D Charity for the first time. We performed for their children. It was wonderful — warm and joyful, the way a good show always is. And on the way home, Tom and I kept coming back to the same question: what if we did more than a show? What if, instead of magic being done to these kids, it became something they could do? Something they owned?

This trip, we’re making that happen. Over three afternoons in Lviv — May 19, 20, and 21 — Tom and I will run a magic workshop intensive at 3D Charity’s center. The goal is not to produce professional performers. The goal is for each child to learn three or four tricks well enough to perform them with confidence, in front of a real audience, for the charity’s benefactors. On the final afternoon, there will be a graduation ceremony and a showcase.

Performing magic in front of people requires courage. It demands presence. It teaches you to recover with a smile when things go sideways — which, in magic, they sometimes do. These are life skills. And they happen to come wrapped in a deck of cards.

We are genuinely thrilled to be doing this with Kateryna and the entire 3D Charity team. This is what our Education Chapter was always supposed to look like.

A Note on Funding

Our international travel and accommodation are fully covered for this trip. What we need help with is the daily reality of being in the field: food, and the Uber and Bolt rides that get us across Kyiv and Lviv to the places where we’re needed. We’ve launched a small crowdfunding campaign with a goal of $2,000. Every dollar goes directly to sustaining this mission.

If you’ve given to MWB before — thank you. If you’ve been thinking about it, this might be a good moment.

We leave May 7th. We’ll be posting updates from the road.

With gratitude,

Carlos López Global Programs Director, Magicians Without Borders

https://donorbox.org/magic-is-still-needed-in-ukraine-we-re-going-back