Eyes on People: Ukrainian Volunteering as a Way to Survive the War
Since the Russian invasion started on 24 February 2022, my country has been bleeding. Yet everywhere I look, I see people getting involved as volunteers. In 2018, four years after Russia occupied the Donbas region and Crimea, the percentage of Ukrainians who volunteered was 18%, almost 7.5 million people. Now, in May 2022, all Ukrainians are either defending their homeland from Russian aggression with weapons in their hands or volunteering. And one cannot blame them for seeing no other options.
Yet, Ukrainian volunteering is different from volunteering in other parts of the world. While there is hardly a society in the history of mankind that does not have the ideas of voluntary and unselfish help, in Ukraine, for some reason, volunteering has always been connected with the need to protect one’s own identity, and always goes hand in hand with resistance to external aggression.
Many people believe that volunteers’ hearts are made of sheer gold. Well, I never considered myself such a person. As a classic introvert most comfortable living in my shell, I never wanted to become an official member of a volunteer organization. I was too shy to make the world a better place. Constant communication with people and an endless whirlpool of emotions entailed in public work scared me. And yet, I was “lucky” enough to have active, compassionate friends who constantly dragged me into their projects. So as a first-year student I took part in a charity performance dedicated to St. Nicholas Day in an orphanage in 2009. In my sophomore year, I was working at my uni’s HIV/AIDS resource center — surprisingly, I got there by pure accident, without any help from my lively friends. And after receiving my bachelor’s degree in 2012, I spent an entire month in Spain helping local animal rights activists and wildlife protectors build artificial nests for owls. Obviously, this opportunity was suggested to me by a friend who has always dreamed of visiting Barcelona.
I believe this to be one of the strongest features of Ukrainian volunteering: the more people around you are engaged in any kind of socially useful activities, the higher chances are that you too will find yourself involved in volunteering, sooner or later.
Despite this, until 2014 Ukraine was not considered a country of volunteering and ranked only #150 on the world list of countries. But in 2014, the Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea, and the war in the Donbas region dramatically changed the Ukrainian volunteer climate. It was an extremely difficult period, and it was the volunteer movement that united society — it turned out that people were ready to solve the most urgent and painful problems of their state on their own. And at that time Ukrainians had a problem: the pro-Russian president had betrayed his country and decided, despite public dissent, to run politics in such a way as to turn Ukraine into a colony of the Russian Federation as soon as possible. And because volunteering is based on the desire to be directly involved in solving a socially important problem, thousands of people became volunteers at that time.
Volunteers took responsibility for the people on Maidan (please, Google it to learn more about the Revolution of Dignity and Maidan). They organized field kitchens, set up tents, and provided the necessary information to protesters. Among the volunteers were also professionals — doctors, lawyers, psychologists — who sought to provide some help to protesters and supporters. During the winter of 2014, dozens of volunteer initiatives and internet projects emerged. I was 23, and I was an adult, but my life choices still depended on the path my active, socially responsible friends took. So, of course, I participated in everything that my friends did: I cut lemons to make ginger tea and prepared sandwiches in the Order of Malta’s tent on Maidan, I distributed food to people who fought for my freedom, and I helped my peers create a memorial site dedicated to those who died as a result of politicians’ crimes.
Most likely, without volunteers, there would be no Revolution of Dignity. In 2014, almost a quarter of Ukrainians — 23% of the population (or 10.5 million people), had experience of some kind of volunteering, and in 2015, about 45% of the population were engaged in socially useful activities in various ways. Before that, the common areas were assistance to vulnerable groups and improvement of public space (the most popular kinds of volunteering tasks throughout the world), but in 2014 it was assistance to the Ukrainian army and all possible ways to help the affected people.
Today, in 2022 most of the Ukrainian volunteers’ efforts are also aimed at supporting the Ukrainian military in the fight against the Russian occupiers. There is no single state register of volunteers in Ukraine, so it is difficult to pinpoint the exact number of people who volunteer. But, for sure, there are hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the country and abroad (I bet there are actually millions). To engage in military and humanitarian volunteering, some people become members of volunteer organizations, others do something on their own. Since 2014, there are several large funds in Ukraine that are engaged in military volunteering — due to their size and effort they are noticeable:
- Come Back Alive Foundation has existed since 2014. Since the beginning of Russia’s open invasion of Ukraine, it has expanded and scaled its areas of work. Currently, the foundation has 7 major areas of work related to providing defenders of Ukraine with all necessary resources.
- Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation first helped with equipment, armor, and food, and later began to provide units with high-precision equipment. The Foundation buys protective gear, optic devices, drones, medical supplies, and transport vehicles for the military. Another direction they work on is humanitarian aid.
- KOLO is a very young foundation that emerged in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. A group of Ukrainian top managers working in the IT industry has teamed up to help the Ukrainian army. They find, buy, and send equipment to the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front lines.
Local initiatives are more difficult to notice, but their work is no less important. Volunteers often say that the best initiatives start with helping neighbors. Right now, every Ukrainian city has volunteer chats that help displaced people and local vulnerable groups, prepare food, collect food and necessities for the military, and take care of animals. People are helping to close the windows that were smashed during rocket bombings and shelling with wooden planks, free pets from empty apartments, and tidy up areas liberated from the Russian occupiers. Ukrainian boys and girls even decided to bring order and structure to the individual volunteer initiatives by creating a dedicated website. Moreover, in many cities in Europe, America, Canada, and other countries there are groups of Ukrainians, who currently live abroad, and local supporters that actively help by gathering humanitarian aid, organizing support campaigns, and providing care for refugees.
Another feature of Ukrainian volunteering is that sometimes people use this activity as therapy, as a way to fight against stress and pain. I see how people heal themselves this way all the time.
Volunteering is doing something you are good at without waiting for acknowledgment or reward. Doing it for free, simply because you can do it. When the war, injustice, and unexpected aggression from another state are ruining your country, it is very difficult to process new information. Under constant stress, people’s lives often narrow down to basic activities and tasks. You only do the things that require low effort, the things you know how to do best because you have repeated these actions millions of times.
It is generally believed that volunteers are supposed to be kind and compassionate people. Well, I never considered myself a true volunteer. And I don’t think I’m a kind person — there’s too much anger and fury in me right now. But there is a thing I’m good at, too. I see people, and I want you to see them as well.
I see A.
He is 23, a young and ambitious person. He is tall and loud. I am always outraged by his driving skills — way too fast, way too unpredictable for my self-preserving nature. But driving is something he genuinely loves and deeply enjoys. A. loves sitting behind the wheel and pressing a clutch pedal. He travels a lot by car with his friends — I saw him driving 1,500 km non-stop from Kyiv to the Alps, tired but content and motivated, keeping the car going. Driving is something A. is really good at.
So when Russia occupied Ukraine again on 24 February, this was the only thing he could do. First, he took his family to a safe place, driving day and night non-stop. And then he received a call from his friend, who asked if A. could help him deliver some ambulance trucks. Volunteers abroad have found ambulances and someone had to drive them from the border to the places in Ukraine they are much needed. And so, by now A. and his friends have delivered dozens of ambulances, driving them throughout the country. This time, I won’t complain about him driving too fast because his passion for speed is saving people’s lives.
I see T.
I have known her my whole life, and she wanted to be a dentist since she was 6 years old. And yet she barely worked 2 or 3 years after graduation from medical university, as she got married and gave birth to her first child. Today she’s a mother of four, and her youngest is already a teenager. Children were the most important thing in her life for the last 25 years. She was proud of her parenting, raising her boys to be strong and independent.
On 24 February 2022, a Russian rocket hit the airport just 15 km away from the beautiful house she and her husband had built for their family. At first, they stayed at home, sitting in the basement, but the fear was too strong, with rockets, explosions, and zero safety for the whole family. So the next day, they all sat in the car, with their dog and their parrot, and headed West, closer to the mountains. By chance, they settled down in a village that hosted an orphanage — a hundred children and only a few of their caretakers escaped Kharkiv when the Russians started shelling the city, people’s houses, and civil infrastructure. The local community provided the orphanage with a place to stay — luckily, the village owns an old sanatorium.
But the children needed something more. They needed care, attention, and a moment of kindness. And this is where T. was most wanted, with her love for children and ability to manage a handful of kids. She visits the sanatorium regularly, talking to the children, dressing them, and taking everyone for a walk (one of her favorite “techniques” of parenting).
I see Y.
We fled Kyiv together on the second day of the full-scale invasion, 25 February. Explosions and shootings were already taking place 10 kilometers from Y’s house. His pregnant wife and their very scared cat were in the car as well — we left Kyiv at 9 am and spent 27 hours on the road without a break. Y. spent about a third of this time with a phone in his hands — he messaged, he talked to people, he reached out to his old acquaintances and complete strangers. Just like us, people all over Ukraine were leaving their homes and heading west. Like us, they were running away without a clear plan and spending many hours on the road.
And so it happened that at that moment Y. was able to do what he did well — he coordinated some people and tried to feed others, as he belonged to a community called Food for Life. In times of peace, this organization’s major focus was to provide vulnerable groups of people with healthy vegetarian food. They were feeding elderly people, physically impaired persons, homeless people, and people who found themselves in extreme, critical situations amid epidemics, cataclysm, local military conflict, etc.
During the first month of the invasion, they distributed more than 11,000 hot meals in 59 distribution spots daily through the efforts of more than 400 volunteers. And Y. is now a proud father. He took his family to safety, but he still managed to help people with what he knew best. His efforts are visible.
I see N.
Her dad joined the army on the 12th day of the Russian invasion. Today he is on the front line of the war, defending our lives and our freedom. Something unbelievable happened, and no one was ready. This is basically the reason why Ukraine needs so much help from the world. Her father has joined the military forces, so the only thing N. could do was to help him. She was raising funds to purchase some critical things for her dad and his teammates. His unit was in urgent need of optical equipment to perform their tasks effectively and to be safe.
So, N. managed to find a sufficient amount of money. She has raised a bit more than $6,000, which was enough to cover everything, in just two days. N. and her family received 90 donations, 84 of which came from their friends and acquaintances. They added some personal funds to what was raised and purchased the necessary things, all this stuff now helps protect our country in the East of Ukraine. N. managed to send only one parcel directly to her dad using state delivery services. After that, the nearest town was evacuated and nothing more could be sent via mail.
Up until now, the only way to deliver something there is offered by one volunteer from Dnipro. N. sends all the parcels to him, and he carries them to the front by car every week. If it weren’t for him, nothing could be delivered to N.’s dad and other soldiers. Such volunteers are the only hope for the people on the front. Today 700,000 people from the Armed Forces are defending Ukraine in the war against Russia. This means that at least 700,000 more people are doing the same as N. — trying to help their loved ones in all possible ways.
I see these people around me, and I know that there are millions of Ukrainians with similar stories. That’s what makes me believe in our victory.
But after the victory this special Ukrainian volunteering will not end: we will have new problems, and there surely will be people who consider it their duty to do something useful for society. When the war ends, we will have a ruined country with destroyed infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of people will no longer have their homes or jobs. Most likely, the state won’t be able to solve these problems quickly, so we will all need a little more volunteering. But we also need to keep in mind that people are already starting to burn out. They get tired, their stocks are exhausted, and there is a crucial need to earn a living — volunteering cannot last long on enthusiasm alone.
So yes, Ukrainian people must take care of financial struggles. And yet they crave for emotional support — they really need you to see them.
