Needless to say, the war in Ukraine touches us very deeply. Like the rest of the world, we sympathize with the people who are victims of the war, who have lost possessions and even loved ones, who are on the run...
And of course we asked ourselves what we could do from DNS Belgium to help the people affected. In the end, we decided to launch two actions.
Laptops for Ukrainian refugees
We are making €100,000 and 200 computers available for Ukrainian refugees who are coming to Belgium via Digital for Youth. Our country receives thousands of Ukrainians and the government provides basic facilities such as shelter and food. It is not easy to support refugees on the basis of our activities and mission. But we can make a relevant contribution by providing additional IT hardware.
Refugees can use the laptops that we collect through Digital For Youth to stay in touch with family and friends who stayed behind in Ukraine. The laptops can also help them follow education or language courses in Belgium and integrate (digitally) here.
Donate for Ukraine
Would you like to make a financial or hardware donation yourself? Then it would be most welcome at Digital for Youth via the website or by mail to info@digitalforyouth.be.
Quarantine for .be domain names extended to 1 year
We also want to do something for registrants in the affected region. If a registrant does not renew his .be domain name, this can be a deliberate choice. But it could also be that the registrant lost sight of the renewal or did not pay on time. In that case, there is a 40-day quarantine period during which the domain name cannot be registered by others. This way, the registrant has time to correct his forgetfulness.
We have increased that quarantine period from 40 days to one year for registrants from the affected war zone. It is a small gesture, but it enables us to protect 2,000 .be domain names of registrants from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, for whom the renewal of their domain name could well be the very last and very least of their worries.
And yes, we are addressing those three countries because we are convinced that, despite the atrocities committed by Russia, innocent people in each of them are the victims of a political game that is being played over their heads.
With this article, we support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.