Various Soroptimist Clubs and individuals have been supporting humanitarian aid initiatives to help Ukraine. SI Slough Windsor and Maidenhead would just like to share what they have been doing, This first came about when a member saw on local social media last year a request by a business woman in Ascot for certain items needed in Ukraine. The result was that two members took some disability aids to the business woman which were going to be sent over to Ukraine through the Embrace Me Foundation. The business woman, Lynda Yong, became involved with this organisation because her daughter had taken in a Ukrainian woman refugee and her two children. Lynda was asked to come and give a talk to the Club this January and had already provided the Club with a list of the latest required items by the Foundation. This list included generators (for field hospitals), painkillers, bandages, candles (which are melted down with cardboard in tin cans to make trench candles), warm clothes, blankets, tents, disability aids, thermal vests for the soldiers, ground coffee (which is very good for stemming bleeding), instant soups, male disposable protective pants, sleeping bags, hearing aids, warm socks, tooth brushes and toothpaste, and unused vitamin drinks only available normally via prescription – many people have leftover ones of these. The Club was able to provide everything apart from tents through the huge generosity of members and others. These included items from churches in the Parish of Central Windsor, SI High Wycombe, Age Concern Windsor and candles from St George’s Chapel (Windsor Castle).
The Embrace Me Foundation buys second hand ambulances in the UK and they are either driven to Ukraine or sent by truck, filled with aid. There was enough aid to fill two ambulances. A Club member and an Associate member donated cash towards a generator which would be purchased in Poland as they are cheaper there than in the UK. These battery operated generators are used in the field hospitals. Three Club members met the Ukrainian (Dimitro) who was driving one of the two ambulances the Foundation had just bought and they saw the donated items packed in these vehicles.. Dimitro showed them a video of men in the trenches and a message saying four of his friends had just been killed. He does not speak English but is able to communicate via a Translation App on his phone. His mother in law lives near Zaporizhzhia, where at one stage the Russians occupied the nuclear power plant. She was a hospital Consultant there who had retired but went back to work when the hostilities started. She described what she saw in the hospital as absolutely horrendous, not just the wounded soldiers but what the Russians had done to children too.
Our Club hopes to continue supporting this Foundation in whatever way we can and find out what is happening to the Ukrainian Soroptimists via Clubs in the UK who have Friendship Links with them.
At the SI Conference in Dublin, a Club member asked the Immediate Past European Federation President if her Federation was supporting the Russian Soroptimists as well as the Ukrainian ones. Her reply was “of course as they are suffering too”.
The photographs show some of the donations and Club President Irene presenting a cheque for £500.