Tram, bus, trek and squirrel

This morning we had a long trek, by tram, bus (barely held together) and foot, to a huge warehouse on the outskirts of Lviv.

The warehouse is the size of an aircraft hangar, stocked to the rafters with humanitarian aid. The. The coordinator ran her own IT business before the war. Now this is her life - taking calls every day with requests for aid from all parts of the Ukrainian frontline, and trying to find transport and drivers to meet these requests. There is a real shortage of both vans and drivers, which we are trying to address.

We have some thinking to do about how to spend the funds that were donated before we left England. For instance, at the warehouse, boxes of food are packed, sufficient for 2 people for a week, at a cost of about £30. These are destined for the devastated areas of eastern Ukraine that have just been liberated, where there is no power, water, heating, etc. Whereas, fruit for a lot of people in the refugee centre costs £50 per day. 

On arriving home, we spent the the rest of the afternoon liaising with various individuals/organisations that have access to transport/drivers. One of the frustrations for us is that we don't have our own van - if we could resource one, it would be a real game changer for our ability to help here. If anyone knows of a van loitering anywhere, please let us know.

In the meantime, we are still working on linking refugee families with the sponsors who have recently come forward to offer accommodation in their homes. We have a meeting arranged in Stryiskyi Park on Thursday.

The squirrel painted on the ticket validator made us smile. 


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