Part II of the interview with Olha, where she tells us more about her work with the Vdianchni volunteer foundation, about the collections that have already been closed since the start of the full-scale war, and shares how her perception of the world and her own life has changed as a result of the invasion.
Tell us about how you started volunteering at the Vdianchni charity foundation.
A friend of mine wrote to me about the humanitarian aid she was receiving from an American NGO. There were a lot of medicines that she could not sort out, so she asked me for help.
And that’s how we started working. A few more people joined us later on. All this was happening in her garage. In June, my friend Khrystyna organized a charity foundation, officially registered it and named it “Vdianchni”. And now it has been operating since June 2022.
We all work on a volunteer basis. The first six months we worked so that humanitarian aid was sent to us, and we then sent it to the military, doctors, and IDPs. Now we are working more on raising money for the needs of the military and doctors. We mostly deal with tactical medicine or frontline hospitals.
Tell us more about the Vdianchni charity organization, its members, and how the foundation was organized
In the beginning, it was just Khrystyna who was managing this project. Then she involved me and a few other people. Khrystyna is a lawyer, but she is also a project manager. Another girl works in IT, and is good at programming, so she created our foundation’s website. We also cooperated with other colleagues competent in different fields and also helped us. These are IT specialists, doctors who helped to pack humanitarian aid, photographers, videographers, and SMMs.
Probably, one of the biggest requests we received was from a Kharkiv hospital, for one ton of aid. It took us almost a week to collect everything.
At first, our foundation worked at Khrystyna’s home, and then we found a beneficiary who gave us his warehouse for free. We’re still using it, so all our humanitarian aid is stored in this warehouse.
Now we have 20 people in our team. Everyone is responsible for a certain area. Someone is in charge of social media, another person is in charge of the website, someone else – of promoting our foundation’s business, communication with those who receive aid, purchases… Although not everyone studied to work in these areas, everyone had to learn, so to speak.
What are your responsibilities in the foundation’s work?
As a medical professional, I help to pack the medical aid we have. I also work with medical clinics, communicate with doctors, distributors, and manufacturers of certain medical devices and products. I also keep in touch with military doctors.
If there are some new projects, we also divide the work. I can also manage social media and do anything else. But my main job is related to medicine. That is, I make sure that we get the right things at the right price.
Was it difficult to join the foundation’s work?
No, it wasn’t. Everything happened gradually. Our foundation is growing quite fast and well. Now there are much more of us than there were at the beginning. There are still a lot of volunteers (in addition to the twenty) who work constantly. We call each other once every two weeks, and meet once a month to discuss everything.
It was not difficult to join because everyone knows each other.
Is it difficult for you to work and run the foundation at the same time?
It is. Especially when we are raising money. It is always a responsibility, because there are deadlines and goals. Usually, it is quite difficult.
But now it’s a little easier because I’ve already finished my master’s degree, but on the other hand, I have a slightly different job because I got a promotion. Sometimes it can be difficult to combine many tasks and jobs. But in fact, working at the foundation, I get more out of it, so I see it as a hobby rather than a job.
You always go there with joy and do everything you need to do.
Can you tell us about some of the largest collections or needs that the foundation has managed to cover?
Yes, I remember when we raised money for stabilization centers. Our friends joined this fundraiser: two artists who painted murals in Mariupol. They are quite famous in Ukraine: brothers Serhiy and Vitaliy Grekh. The guys donated two of their paintings to us, which we raffled off among our subscribers and everyone else (the condition for the raffle was to make a donation of 300 UAH or more). The artists gave us a few more of their works, which we also raffled off. Then our team also organized an offline event on this occasion. In total, we managed to raise 600 thousand hryvnias.
It’s a pretty big sum. We used the money to buy cardiac monitors, coagulators, and surgical lamps. A large amount of equipment that needed to be sent to stabilization centers in the Zaporizhzhia direction.
We also raised money for a ventilator (artificial lung ventilation device – ed.) and a neurosurgical monitor. This is a monitor we bought for Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro. It is currently in Germany, but is on its way to us. The price of this project was 480,000 hryvnias, and it hasn’t been available in Ukraine yet, so it will be the first one. We found distributors who signed a contract with the manufacturer in Germany. We expect it to arrive in October. Doctors in Dnipro have been trained abroad and know how to operate it. It helps treat patients with head injuries, which is very important. The hospital in Dnipro is one of the first points of reference for very severe injuries. And neurosurgery is actually very well developed there.
Now we have a new project that has just started. It will involve 10 artists and 10 of their works. We will raise UAH 1 million for 10 buggies (Ukrainian-made vehicles that will be used to evacuate the wounded). It is very cool that they can be used to drive on the steppe. A large vehicle is very noticeable, but the buggies are very fast and agile, so the military actually need them.
Tell us about the difficult and pleasant aspects of volunteering
We have Dmytro, who also volunteered at the station and helped the foundation in many ways. He is really reliable. When he was going to help the foundation, he was mobilized. Now Dmytro is fighting at war.
It was a very difficult moment for us, because on the one hand we all work as one, but at the same time we realize that the military needs support, because they are also exhausted.
On the bright side, I can say that our people are wonderful. You never know where help will come from and what they will offer you. You don’t even expect the amount of help and money you receive.
We were reposted by bloggers. Among them, I can remember Mrs. Ann. She has half a million subscribers. She was very invested in making a video about us. She spent half a minute talking about our foundation and why it is important, and we had just written to her on Instagram beforehand that we needed her help. These are incredibly wonderful people. It’s nice to see and understand this.
Have your values changed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion?
Probably, the value of being free has become even stronger. I think it has always been inside me. And the value of life has become stronger because you never know what will happen to you tomorrow. You have to build the future, think about ways to recover Ukraine. But at the same time, you should remember that every day is beautiful and appreciate this moment, because tomorrow may not come.
