Herbert George Wells said: “If we don’t end war, war will end with us”. This is a wise remark, but it seems as if we are not taking this into account and once war has started we can only try to provide help. 

When Russia invaded Ukraine last February starting a war, people from all over the world began to pronounce themselves against this unequal, useless and easy to avoid war. Amongst these people, there have been a lot of people who also started to help the Ukrainian citizens. 

Airfunding is a crowdfunding platform which is available in many countries around the world and also in many languages. This platform is mainly focused on those cases whose aim is to help, as its slogan says “Helping everyone with everyone”. In the Airfunding website you can find projects to help individuals or also you can subscribe to provide help to small ONGs.

As soon as the war in Ukraine started, Airfunding which is part of the Kiheitai company and a lot of people from different places, began to look for a way of helping those who were and still are suffering the consequences of such a terrible event.

One of the most successful cases connected to the Ukrainian war on the Airfunding platform was started by Anna-Liza Slabinska, a Ukrainian woman who works as an external consultant in an international IT company. She stated this project with the initial idea of providing medication and medical supplies for those who were suffering the war consequences, but as the days were passing and the devastating effects of war started to appear she realised that people in Ukraine were experiencing some other shortages.

Anna-Liza kindly accepted to be interviewed by a member of the Airfunding team offering to us her valuable experiences and ideas. She explained to us that with some friends they self-arranged a volunteer group and started doing what they could, at the same time she registered a fund for donations on Airfunding.

We were also interested in knowing some other aspects of Anna-Liza’s project, for instance, if it was her own idea to start this project and why she decided to start it. She told us that as soon as war started she realised that her living conditions were quite better than most people and that she wanted to help in some way. After talking with some friends and colleagues living abroad she decided to open a project in Aifunding because this was a great opportunity to start helping Ukraine.

She also explained to us that at the beginning, she wanted to support people with medication but when they arrived at the hospitals they realised that there was also a food shortage. For this reason, they started buying and delivering food. Then they got the information that many disabled people had been left alone and had no possibility to receive any support or help, so Anna-Liza and her friends started delivering supplies and help to those people. Later, they also got the information that the military medical centres needed different supplies and they provided some help for these centres.

At the moment of the interview they were also delivering humanitarian aid to Irpin, Bucha, trying to get closer to the Kharkiv region.

When we asked her about the actual situation, she explained to us that the situation was not improving, but it was changing. Russian troops were relocating but not leaving Ukraine. They had witnessed the results of the awful acts of Russian soldiers in Kyiv district territory where the survivors were in extreme need of support (food, medical and psychological support).

Unfortunately, tragedy also touched her and her friends directly, because one of their volunteers died when delivering humanitarian aid to Chernihiv. This was a huge loss for them. 

She also mentioned that the situation was still very dangerous at that moment, in every part of Ukraine.

Regarding the situation of children, she explained that children were one of their biggest pains. Over 300 children had been officially killed and this number would be doubled or tripled when the Ukrainian army could liberate other territories and we would be able to see the full statistics. She also mentioned that many children from 6 to 16 years old were raped, tortured and then killed. The ones who survived this would have huge psychological traumas.

When asked by our team member about how pleased she felt regarding her project on Airfunding. She mentioned that they had not expected such a huge activity in her fund. She thought that she was going to receive 1500-2000 USD, but, fortunately, she received 12.749 USD in 30 days from countries all over the world!! 

She also explained to us that she has already received 2 transfers during the development of the project, and that she will receive the rest, the biggest amount, in about 7-10 days.

When asked about their further needs she said that all the help matters (people sharing their post, and every penny is meaningful!) and the thing they need most is that the Russians leave their country.

As closing remarks, she mentioned many times that she was very happy and completely thankful with all the people that were making this possible.

“People are amazing, supportive! I am very thankful for all the help” Anna-Liza.