SUPERHEROES WITHOUT SUPERPOWERS

Marta Dorofei

We have all heard of the horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And being a Ukrainian student abroad, you simply feel like you NEED to act. You know your friends and family are still in an active war zone, which feels very challenging! It was the third day of the invasion when we started the campaign to collect goods for the people in Ukraine, with a team of five Ukrainian students who study at the Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

We have faced many difficulties along the way. The main problem was managing the team and operation. Before starting the campaign, we didn’t assign different roles and everyone was trying to take the lead. The campaign gained quite a lot of traction at the university and a lot of goods were coming in. There was a high demand for good coordination of this entire process, which we were definitely lacking. Right at the moment, the team was on the edge of breaking up this whole operation, our lector Kenny Meesters supported us in rearranging our team and taking control of the operation. Every day from this moment on, we made a schedule for the next day and we changed the roles so everyone had the possibility to learn new skills and discover their talents that could benefit the initiative. I was mostly responsible for communication and supervising. 

Quickly, the team grew to 20 students and almost 200 volunteers who helped us with sorting out the goods. It was amazing to see that I didn’t have to motivate people to donate goods. Due to the extensive media coverage, many people felt intrinsically motivated to donate their goods. This however led to the next challenge: logistics. Simply collecting the goods didn’t make the cute. We also needed trucks to deliver the goods to Ukraine; truck drivers who are willing to drive all the way across Europe to a war zone; documents to pass the border, and a destination where the goods could be delivered. 

We felt overjoyed by the enormous response to our initiative. We had never imagined it to be this effective! It felt like we were doing much more than we actually could. Imagine being an exchange student from a country that is at war. Seeing the results of our efforts feels like a superpower! Actually, it still feels unrealistic. Especially because we all started without any experience in the humanitarian work field.

Having someone with experience will help you a lot as you don’t have to make the same mistakes a second time. But when looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. Without all the challenges, I wouldn’t have gotten this experience. I don’t want it to be perfect as it is a part of my personal and professional development. I hope this will inspire others to take action as well. You don’t need tons of experience or a well-funded organization to make an impact. All you need is the motivation to make a change!