Soft skills and people power in a battle for hearts and minds
The Ukraine relief effort is seeking fresh impetus a month after charity projects first launched
By Simon Greaves
“My name’s Roman. I’m a cleaner. I’ll clean your toilets.” This was one of hundreds of offers of practical help that organisers of the London relief effort to truck essential supplies to the Ukraine border have received in the past four weeks.
But with many volunteers exhausted by endless sorting, packing and loading donations bound for the war zone, the general manager at the White Eagle Club in Balham, southwest London, today (Wednesday) made a fresh appeal for volunteers as the war entered its 27th day, conscious that the Russian military offensive had been far less successful than the international battle for hearts and minds as the conflict drags on.
Kris Gondek is looking forward to the club returning to its previous use as a social centre and public restaurant this weekend, ordinarily host to numerous classes such as as salsa and karate. But the emergency collections will continue as long as the need lasts, with donations being taken one day a week there and also to a centre at Tooting Bec and the Purley industrial estate warehouse from where the trucks leave.
He has been staggered by the response to Facebook and other social media posts, then marshalled on a WhatsApp group with over 250 regular volunteers signed up. Someone even donated three pallets of candles to help keep people’s spirits up. “We are so proud of our volunteers but many are now getting very tired. We need more at the two centres that are staying open,” said Gondek. “We underestimated the social media power . We were overwhelmed by the response.”
Adding her soft power and deep social media influence today was reigning Miss World, Polish business student Karolina Bielawska, who has been visiting Polish Clubs, including Ognisko Polskie, the historic Kensington club that became a focus of wartime resistance, to support the relief effort. She said: “It’s not about me…this is about showing the strength of other peoples’ efforts, backing their efforts and helping them to build up others living in far worse conditions.
“I believe that every human being deserves peace, freedom and safety. I hope that this will return to the people of Ukraine. In the meantime, we all have a duty to support the humanitarian effort happening in support of the situation in Ukraine.”
Standing next to a huge pile of empty suitcases and childrens’ backpacks, Kate Frolova, 26, from Odessa, told how all her relations were still in Ukraine but this army of volunteers had now become her family. She had volunteered for a month to be the club’s head of social media with leave from her job as an account executive at Snapchat.
“With one-day a week collections, we are now making a streamlined approach to donations. The response has been terrific. The people here are my new family. I never realised I could find so many like-minded people driven in the same way that I am about this cause. We are all heartbroken by what we see and read, but this effort is what keeps us all going.”
The Balham relief project started when Magda Harvey, owner of a Polish foods cash and carry business, realised that her distribution lorries could return through Poland carrying warm clothing, medicines and other specialist supplies. So far the army of volunteers has dispatched 42 truck loads, 60 vans and more than 1,500 pallets of goods.
Simon Greaves is a Financial Times/FT.com journalist
