Editor’s note:The conflict in Ukraine has displaced millions of people and has created a humanitarian crisis across Europe. The following is an interview between Rotary magazine and Mykola Stebljanko, editor of Rotary magazine in Ukraine.
Q: What’s your situation there now?
Stebljanko: I’m now living in Odesa. It’s the third most populist city on the southwest of Ukraine, an important port city on the Black Sea coast. Currently, there’s no military action here yet, but we live under the constant threat of bombs and missiles. Often, air raid sirens will wake us up in the middle of the night. We have to get up and hide in a safe place. You know, in my apartment, the safest place is the bathroom. We huddle together and spend the rest of the night there. Occasionally, we experienced a few rocket attacks, but most of the time, it’s a safe place.
Most of the military actions now center around Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and Kharkiv. More than a dozen smaller cities are also under attack. The city of Mariupol in the Southeast of Ukraine is under siege. More than 2,500 civilians have died there and close to 400,000 people are trapped in the city. The Russian army stopped anyone from escaping. Many are without electricity, water, and heat.
Q: What is happening with Rotary clubs in Ukraine?
Stebljanko: There are 62 Rotary clubs in Ukraine. At the moment, only the Rotary Club of Kherson has temporarily suspended meetings because the city is now under the control of the Russian military. I recently spoke with a Rotarian there. None of them are able to escape and are trapped inside the city. They no longer meet or do any projects for fear of personal safety. Our district governor sent a letter of support to all the Rotarians in Kherson.
Other Rotary clubs continue to operate and are trying their best to conduct Rotary services. We have created a special committee to coordinate help. Each club has a representative on the committee and we meet online twice a day to discuss issues that are facing our clubs.
Q: What kind of relief projects are Ukraine clubs doing?
Stebljanko: Our Rotary services fall into the following three areas:
To provide help to our hospitals, where a large number of wounded civilians are being treated. They are in dire need of medical supplies. We have set up a special account and have received about US$100,000 from Rotary clubs and districts from around the world. We have already purchased and distributed medicine and equipment. We also have been approved for two disaster response grant.
To coordinate humanitarian aid. Rotary clubs and districts are sending humanitarian aid via trucks, ships, and air carriers. We are rebuilding Rotary’s humanitarian hubs along the Ukraine borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. They have received all of the supply items and sent them across the border to our cities. Then, we have different hubs inside Ukraine near the border regions where Rotarians distribute this humanitarian help to the cities that are in dire need of help. Most of the items are clothes, food, and medicine.
To help families of Rotarians who want to leave the country. We have received many requests from Rotarians in Europe and America, who would like to host our family members and relatives.
Q: Why don’t you leave Ukraine?
Stebljanko: I’m already a refugee. I lived in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea for 40 years. But in 2015, I had to leave my native city because of the Russian annexation of Crimea. So, my wife, Olga and I moved to Odesa. We felt our move to Ukraine would keep us safe. When people asked us why we do not want to leave Odesa and go outside Ukraine, I always answer: we were forced to leave our motherland once in 2015. We don’t want to leave our country again. We are Ukrainians and we would like to stay in Ukraine.
Q: What’s your message to the Rotary clubs around the world?
Stebljanko: On behalf of Rotarians in Ukraine, I would like to say a big thank you to all our Rotary fellows who have helped us in Ukraine. It means a lot to us during this difficult time in our country’s history. At the same time, I would like to appeal to Rotary people to lobby their governments and push for peace. We are grateful for our friends around the world who are helping us.
The first shipments of ShelterBox aid have arrived in Ukraine. Thousands of our mattresses have arrived in Ukraine, they will be distributed to collective centres in Lviv this week, offering people somewhere to sleep and keep warm at night. Bales of thermal blankets, pallets of Shelter Kits, solar lights and other essential items are on their way.
But our work doesn't stop there. We also have a team working in Moldova, where many people are fleeing from Ukraine. The team have been visiting collective centres and working to understand what people need.
Your continuing support is helping us reach people who urgently need shelter and support - both within Ukraine and in neighbouring countries. Watch our latest video update from Martin in Moldova.
By Jeremy Opperman, Rotary Club of Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa
Like countless others, I watched, read, and listened in impotent and morbid fascination at the horrors unfolding in Ukraine. But one rather different interview caught my ear, while listening to the BBC.
It was the manager of the Ukrainian winter Paralympic team, still competing in Beijing at the time. Speaking in fluent English, with exhausted clarity and indelible sadness etched into every syllable, he tried to articulate how the team members were feeling about their country literally disintegrating in their absence.
Far beyond the incredulity and outrage at the atrocity of the invasion and war itself, was the equally incredulous notion that they simply could not return to their homeland. Knowing that for many if not most of the team – comprising athletes, coaches, doctors and many fans and support staff – their homes might not exist any longer. How would they even know?
Which made me think about performance under pressure. Most world class athletes perform under pressure of course, pressure of a tough opponent, old injury, hostile crowd, poor weather; you know what I mean.
But how many athletes have to perform while knowing that their country, city, town, village, suburb or homes are literally being devastated at exactly the moment they are supposed to be performing.
I was trying to think of an analogy of what that must be like but realised that no analogy could do it justice.
And, amazingly, their performance is unquestionably excellent as they ranked second in the competition.
Spare a thought for those athletes. Every one of those Paralympians have significant disabilities. To compete in the Paralympics, they have a visual or hearing or physical or psychosocial impairment of some kind.
Notwithstanding their levels of independence, every one of them will have known and needed major support back home, rehab services, schools, accessible transport, assistive devices, prosthetics, technology and service animals not to mention loving, encouraging teaching human support.
Consider just for a minute, what they had to go through in leaving Beijing at the conclusion of the Winter Paralympics on 13 March. They weren’t returning at all. They all, without exception, were going somewhere strange. Hungary? Poland?
It is almost too hard to bear thinking about, but we must.
Jeremy Opperman is a Diversity practitioner and disability equity analyst. www.disabilitydesk.co.za
Rotary has established an official channel for members and other donors around the world to contribute funds to support relief efforts underway by Rotary districts. Give to the Disaster Response Fund
Austrian aid convoy drives all night to deliver supplies for Ukraine
Posted on
Members of the Rotaract Club of Klagenfurt-Wörthersee, Austria, collect medical supplies, food, sleeping bags, and generators for transport to the Polish-Ukrainian border.
By Sebastian Adami, Rotaract Club Klagenfurt-Wörthersee, Austria
On the evening of 2 March, I set out with a team of Rotaract members and colleagues from six nations to deliver relief supplies to contacts waiting for us near the border of Poland and Ukraine. Our five-vehicle convoy traveled through the night to get there. But we were heartened by the response we saw all around us, people flashing their lights or giving us other signs of encouragement as they saw our relief supply convoy marked by flags that identified what we were doing.
This effort came about through the wonderful network we enjoy in Rotary. Like many, I watched with horror the images coming from Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the country on 24 February. These images included people who had lost everything, their belongings, their homes, and some even the lives of loved ones. The more I witnessed people having to seek refugee in subways or shelters and the flood of displaced people seeking safety in other countries, I knew I had to do something. I contacted friends of mine in the Rotaract Club of Klagenfurt-Wörthersee, and we were all united in our desire to help.
The convoy heads across Poland toward the Ukraine border.
Within a short time, I set up a fundraising campaign with a long-time club member Ivana Tadic and our club president Anna Bäuchler with the active support of our members. In one weekend, we collected many donations from family, friends, and work colleagues including canned food, water, sleeping bags, generators, and medical supplies. The question became how to deliver these items.
As part of our campaign, I had reached out to a former coworker, Alessia Sasina, who was born in Kyiv. She had also been raising donations. But it was not until we both talked to Max Aichlseder that we hit upon the idea of bringing the donations to the Poland-Ukraine border ourselves. He provided us with some vehicles for the transport, with which we could load our own collected donations and those from Alessia. We had reached friends in Ukraine and knew what was needed through the assistance of the Honorary Counsel for Ukraine, Nils Grollitsch, and through our Rotaract network.
Headed for the border
Setting out on 2 March, we drove all night to reach the border the following morning. The closer we got to the border, the calmer we became. We were aware of the situation we were getting ourselves into but we were buoyed by the support we saw around us. For security reasons, we decided to meet our contacts a kilometer before the border crossing.
After more than 1,100 kilometers and 14 hours of driving, we arrived. It was an indescribable feeling I will never forget. The gratitude was amazingly great, and our hearts filled up. From there, the relief goods were transported on to Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Zhytomyr. We unloaded the goods on the spot and agreed to bring back with us some people who had fled the conflict, mainly women and children, exhausted but relieved they had made it to safety after many hours on the road. Before we got back, we were already receiving photos and videos showing that our donations had arrived at hospitals and locations in need.
Second convoy
Since our first campaign was so successful, we put together a second convoy on 15 March. We again coordinated with our contacts from the Rotaract clubs on what was most needed. The atmosphere on the second trip was a bit different than the first. There was much more activity on the roads, and on the way to the border we saw several vehicles heading for Ukraine as aid convoys.
Looking back on the past weeks, I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished together in such a short time. It has been one of the most formative events of my life. We were one of the first, if not the first, aid convoy from Austria to bring goods to Ukraine. We helped as much as we could without hesitating, and with the help of our Rotaract and Rotary contacts, the supplies arrived where they were needed.
As Rotary members, we use our connections to create lasting change in our communities and around the world. And although we’ve all faced the challenges of the pandemic for the past year and a half, we’ve continued to take action, solve problems, and make a positive impact. So we are optimistic that we can gather in person to explore new opportunities for friendship and service at the 2022 Rotary International Convention, 4-8 June in Houston, Texas, USA. We invite you to join us! At the convention, you will:
Develop new friendships and strengthen old ones
Share your Rotary experiences and learn more ways to get involved
Find inspiration in the family of Rotary
Register now to take advantage of our reduced rate, available until 15 December. You’ll be able to cancel for a full refund, minus a $50 per person administration fee, until 30 April. Don’t miss this chance to strengthen your passion for Rotary.
The first Rotaract Club was Chartered on 13th March 1968, and since then 13th March has been celebrated as World Rotaract Day and the week containing this day is observed as the World Rotaract Week.
What is Rotaract?
Rotaract is a global organisation that empowers students and young professionals to create positive and lasting change in themselves, their local community and around the world.
Rotaractors help, learn, and enjoy. We help those in need, learn through professional development opportunities, and enjoy social activities.
Partnering with Rotary International, the over 70 Rotaract Clubs across Australia are part of a worldwide organisation of 250,792 individuals in 10,904 clubs covering 184 countries.
Rotaract Members share a unique passion for taking action through not only ideas but planning and execution of projects and events. Where others see problems, we see solutions
By Mona Mousa, past president of Rotaract Stockholm and its international representative
Mona Mousa
Idon’t have a professional background in social media management, but I have managed several social media accounts such as Rotaract Stockholm and Rotaract Oceania. In advance of the Global Citizen Live event in Paris in September, the rest of my team decided I should handle the Rotary Instagram page, as they have followed me for a long time.
It was an exciting and a scary opportunity because there are thousands of followers, but I went in with an open mind.
I became more connected to Rotary about 3½ years ago through a friend and through my dad, who was the first one to tell me about Rotary and suggest I investigate it.
What appealed to me about Rotaract was the like-minded people I found there, and that it was a community where we can do projects and network for our own and society’s benefit. It started as a place for me to find new people and friends when I moved back to Stockholm to pursue a bachelor’s degree. I went in with no idea what to expect and enjoyed developing an international family.
Opening doors
Being a Rotaract member has opened so many doors for me, like the immediate connections and trust I built with Rotaract members globally. I made friendships that I don’t think I’ll ever lose. Rotaract gave me the opportunity to work on global projects for a good cause such as Move for GECAF (Give Every Child a Future). Through Move for GECAF, Rotaract has raised funds this year and last for children in the Pacific to get immunized against deadly diseases. What really made me proud is Move for GECAF’s global reach with participants from 40 countries.
When the pandemic hit, many clubs struggled to remain active and suffered from low engagement online. A Rotaract member from Italy had the idea to open a Zoom link for any Rotaract members who were alone or wanted some company while working from home. As more people joined, we started to have online events, such as speakers, game and quiz nights, and even online parties with live DJs. With the pandemic, many of the big conferences like REM (Rotaract Europe Meeting) and EUCO (European Convention) were going to cancel their in-person events, so we decided to help run them online through Zoom. This gave us the opportunity to learn and manage events online. With all of the events, friendships grew and personal connections were made with people from all around the world. After almost two years, we still remain online with the same people we met in the beginning of 2020, and I couldn’t be prouder to call them my friends and have a second online family to rely on.
This past September, at Global Citizen Live in Paris, we had another chance for engagement when Rotary International President-elect Jennifer Jones put together a Rotaract “social squad” to take over Rotary’s Instagram stories to showcase Rotary’s involvement in global events. The social squad consisted of me, Pauline Amiel (France), Hanh Minh (Vietnam) and Tamara Gojkovic, my online best friend from World Rotaract Week. Tamara and I had tried so many times throughout the year to meet up somewhere either in my country or hers (Bosnia), but it never worked out until Global Citizen Live.
For the event, I was given creative freedom within respectable limits to showcase on Instagram what the event was all about. I wasn’t sure at first how to set the tone for the content, but I decided on a fun yet professional approach that people would enjoy.
Creating excitement
To create excitement and anticipation, I posted stories asking people where they thought we were heading, starting with our train ride to the Global Citizen Live event. At the hotel, we posted little hints of what we were doing, then posted how we were preparing for the event to engage followers and show off the skills and capabilities of Rotary and Rotaract members as we collaborated.
I was excited to see people interacting through the comments. My favorite part was people guessing where they thought we were heading. Some were correct and some were funny. I was also inspired by how many people tagged and posted about the event and were tuning in to watch Jennifer Jones from home.
I’m hoping this “social squad” takeover experience will allow me to take on similar opportunities and experiences and use social media to promote what Rotary and Rotaract are doing. We already had a panel discussion with Rotaract Oceania where we spoke about the international connections we made through the pandemic. I led a breakout session talking about international collaboration, and specifically about the Instagram takeover and how Rotary connected us internationally over a project. Despite the loneliness and sadness the pandemic has caused for many, we Rotaract members found a silver lining by creating the best friends we could ever imagine.
Learn more about how Rotary offers professional engagement opportunities and how you can provide programs that create additional value for people in your Rotary club by downloading our new Action Plan resource guide.
About the author: Mona Mousa has a master’s degree in Global Peace, Security and Strategy at the Brussels School of Governance in Belgium and is now a European Union Public Policy trainee in Brussels.
Join with Rotary to promote the power of vaccines to protect children and save lives
During World Immunization Week, 24-30 April, let’s advocate for polio eradication and the importance of vaccines to the health and well-being of our communities.
Vaccines are one of the greatest advances of modern medicine. They’re safe, effective, and save millions of lives each year. Our progress in the fight to end polio is proof that vaccines work.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative estimates that the polio vaccine has saved more than 20 million children around the world from paralysis. We need to continue vaccinating children against polio, because as long as the poliovirus circulates anywhere, it is a threat everywhere.
Here’s how you can support Rotary’s efforts during World Immunization Week:
Use the World Immunization Week Toolkitfor graphics and sample posts to share on social media with the hashtags #EndPolio and #VaccinesWork.
Donate to PolioPlus to help Rotary and our partners deliver polio vaccines to vulnerable children. Or start an online fundraiser using Raise for Rotary and share it with your friends, colleagues, and family members. All contributions will be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Rotary districts can give District Designated Funds (DDF) to PolioPlus to help meet our goal of raising $50 million each year to eradicate polio.
I am currently a Health Emergency Management Coordinator for Indigenous Services Canada in the Atlantic Region of Canada. This means I support the emergency response efforts to COVID-19 of the 33 First Nations and Inuit communities spread across the 4 Atlantic provinces - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. First Nations and Inuit communities face unique challenges due to socioeconomic disparities, remoteness, and access to primary care facilities all of which can compound the impacts of COVID-19 on these populations. My role has taken on many different forms and has changed over the course of the pandemic, but has been things such as ensuring communities have access to PPE, PCR tests, or Rapid Antigen Tests. It also means things like communicating changes in federal and provincial guidance regarding vaccination recommendations or transport requirements. Also, it has meant offering peer-to-peer support to a community dealing with a lot. I have played a leading role in our internal coordination, mainly in our information reporting requirements meaning I was involved in drafting and creating information products for various executives and other Federal partners.
As our COVID-19 response moves towards recovery, I am now supporting communities in their recovery efforts. This means I work with communities to help them identify what went well in their response, identify the gaps, and implement changes to ensure the community is better prepared for future waves or future emergencies.
This has been, while tiring, incredibly rewarding work. I have been using the education I gained while a Global Grant Scholar on a daily basis. It has allowed me to play a role, if only a small role, in helping move towards a post-pandemic world.
ROTARY VISION: The application of practical action in solving problems, locally and worldwide
" The prevailing Rotary attitude is rendering service is practicality. Its aim in performing a useful action is to be helpful and serviceable, not sentimental...As Practical idealists, we temper the fanciful flights of the dreamer with the limitations of common sense."
- Address to 1943 Rotary Convention, St Louis, Missouri, USA
