Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine

What?
We will travel to Poland to buy and distribute food, clothing, and other supplies to the refugees arriving from Ukraine.

Our previous experience? 
- Three previous trips  from Switzerland to Poland
- Article about one of our trips in La Regione 
- Viktor  has more than ten years of experience in humanitarian missions with various NGOs

Who?
Viktor Herbeiu  (Senior Digital strategy Manager)
Umberto Junior Mele  (PhD Student USI / SUPSI / IDSIA)
Louis Kirsch (PhD Student USI / SUPSI / IDSIA)
Samia Borra  (Scientific Communicator USI)
Mikołaj Grochot (Analyst at Google)



Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, more than 5 million people have escaped from Ukrainian cities to find some peace in the surrounding countries. A pre-war population of 44 million citizens were living in the country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says the conflict has displaced more than 7 million people.

Almost 60 per cent of the total refugees fled at least first to Poland. Currently, many Poles have been welcoming Ukrainian families into their homes, gathering donations and volunteering to help the refugees.

Despite the millions of individual examples of generosity, concerns are growing that Poland cannot withstand this level of migration.

 

A few weeks ago, my friend Viktor and I have been to the Polish metropolis of Wroclaw to do volunteer work. We managed to deliver more than a ton of food and necessities to the emergency centres at the Central Station. This experience made us realize that much of the money donated is used in transporting these locally collected goods to Poland. Moreover, the cost spent in Switzerland or Italy for the items donated is much higher than the cost of buying the same products directly in Poland.

In this concern, our next humanitarian mission consists in raising funds here in Switzerland to purchase goods locally in Poland. All the expenses made during the mission will be made public on our Facebook page "Aiuto Rifugiati Ucraina - Ticino". Our goal is to be as transparent and cost-effective as possible in our assistance to Ukraine.

The project is handled by Viktor Herbeiu, me (Umberto Junior Mele), Louis Kirsch, Samia Borra and Mikolaj Grochot. Viktor has a decade of experience as a volunteer for several Swiss and international NGOs and he works as Digital Manager. I'm an enthusiastic PhD student at USI (Artificial Intelligence), with a positive mindset toward life and with a strong desire to make a positive impact on society.

 

We hope that our project is of interest and that many of you would love to participate as volunteers or supporters. It would be very helpful even if you could share our project.

 

Thank you!

Questions?
Join our WhatsApp group 
Or text us in our Facebook group 
Or use the go-fund-me contact button