impactMarket Stands With Ukraine

February 24th, 2022. The world was overwhelmed watching Russia starting to attack Ukraine.

While around the globe countries are struggling to recover from the pandemic effects, that still hasn’t ended, another war has started. It means more poverty, death, destruction, millions of new refugees, and a severe impact on the global economy.

From one day to another, people living in Ukraine saw themselves in the middle of a battlefield, under the risk of losing everything — including their own lives.

According to UNCHR, until March 30rd, 4,019,287 refugees fled Ukraine going mainly to the neighboring countries, such as Poland, Romania, Moldova, and Hungary.

impactMarket has a mission to eradicate extreme poverty, which means helping people that live with less than $1,90 per day. Supporting beneficiaries who live in the European countries was not a priority at the moment. However, when this war started, our founders, investors, and supporters decided to take action and help people from Ukraine since we have a highly effective way to do it: an open, borderless, and transparent protocol to fundraise and distribute Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) to those who need it the most.

Aligned with the mission of Prosperity for All and a great spirit of solidarity, we launched the UBI for Ukraine initiative, which is currently being supported by partners in the Celo Ecosystem, like the Celo Foundation, Talent Protocol, and Ari Swap, among others, who have committed more than $1 million to support Ukrainian refugees with UBI through the impactMarket protocol. To contribute, you can donate directly on the community page and, by donating cUSD, you will earn $PACT tokens as a reward. If you want to explore different ways to contribute, please contact us at hello@impactmarket.com. Join this initiative today! #StandWithUkraine

We kicked off the UBI for the Ukraine community right after the beginning of the war, distributing $20 on a weekly basis and $400 in total per person. At first, people affected by the war needed to apply by contacting us through a dedicated Whatsapp number. Aiming to optimize this process and to reinforce the reliability of the beneficiaries supported, new members now need to fill this form, and, based on the information provided we are able to organize and prioritize their onboarding to the community considering the most urgent cases. By getting to know better the beneficiaries and their needs, we can also identify other possible ways to support them, like connecting with institutions in different countries.

Snapshot of our UBI for Ukraine community

We already received 961registrations through the form and 790 were eligible — following all steps related to the required apps, providing all the information requested, and being over 18 years old.

Regarding the applicants, 23,88% are men, 75,96% are women, and 23,42% didn´t answer. In terms of age, there is a wide range from 18 to 73 years old, reinforcing that our solution is simple, seamless, and accessible for all ages. However, 48,7% of the eligible applicants are between 18 to 29 years old, which is expected since the adoption of new technologies is faster among this public.

68% of the inquirers have one or more children. 98,7% of people who register say that they are not receiving any support from any organization, and just 9% are already in other countries like Poland, Moldova, Romania, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. Nevertheless, when we ask who wants to leave the country, only 19,8% say that they want to leave the country at this moment.

Regarding the primary need in the current moment, the answers are food, accommodation, and medicines because almost all people are unemployed due to the war. Other needs are related to who wants/needs to get to another city or border country and for that, they need gas/diesel.

To give all our support to this community, we created a closed Telegram group where we are in constant contact with the beneficiaries, providing support with all procedures related to the UBI. The majority of the beneficiaries share how they are grateful for this help at such a difficult moment in their lives.

• Anna (29 years) from Kharkiv says that from day to day it is becoming scarier because shells fall close to her house but she is too afraid to move to other cities or countries. She is unemployed with her only child and the UBI is helping them to buy food and medicines. According to Anna, the process to get the UBI was quite easy for her.
• Sasha (18), shared with us that he is still living in Ukraine and UBI is helping his family with daily expenses because due to war his parents lost their job.

Most of the beneficiaries didn’t know about impactMarket before. We frequently receive messages from them thanking us and saying that in the future, when everything gets back to normal, they would like to help communities in other countries where impactMarket is operating. By supporting people when they are facing such a hard time, we are nurturing a whole cycle of solidarity.

Our next step is to keep onboarding eligible applicants who are on the waiting list to the current UBI for Ukraine community. We are also reaching NGOs in bordering countries to enable us to onboard refugees, supporting them in settling down in a new country. If you know an organization or project that we can partner with, share with us at hello@impactmarket.com.

Another continuous effort is to fundraise, allowing us to expand our activities related to the war in Ukraine. With your help, we can reach and help more people. Contribute now! It’s always a win-win situation. By donating cUSD to this community, you get $PACT as a reward, thanks to our impact Farming.

While we wait for the war to end, let’s take action and make a difference for those who need it the most! 💙

If you have any questions, you can reach out to us at impactmarket.com, docs.impactmarket.com, or directly by emailing us at hello@impactmarket.com.

You can also find us on Medium, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Youtube, Telegram, and Discord.

Dare to dream with us!

You can be part of the change and empower people all around the world. Your contribution goes to the UBI communities, and when donating cUSD to a specific community or through the impact Farming page or to a specific community, you get $PACT tokens as a reward for the impact you´ll have made. You can also stake your $PACT to get even more rewards.

impactMarket (The Human Empowerment Protocol)

impactMarket provides accessible financial solutions to empower underprivileged people all over the world, unlocking opportunities and human potential. Our inclusive protocol is transparent, reliable, and borderless. It operates as a DAO on top of the Celo network, using $PACT as its governance token while running autonomously through smart contracts.

impactLabs (the company)

impactLabs Lda, based in Portugal, was founded in Nov 2020 by Marco Barbosa, Bernardo Vieira, Afonso Barbosa, and eSolidar. The company is focused on building accessible decentralized systems to unleash human potential and disrupt access to finance while driving DeFi adoption.