In February 2023, David Neely of Synergy Financial Planning contacted me to offer Edinburgh Direct Aid a Mobile office, which he no longer required. He sent through some photographs that showed the vehicle was beautifully fitted out and would be a facility that would be of immense value to organisations in Ukraine.
Fellow Edinburgh Direct Aid volunteer Nigel Osborne MBE suggested a charity in Lviv called Small Wins. Small Wins supports several orphanages and shelters for displaced children and was using music therapy techniques that Nigel had taught them to treat some of the trauma that these children had experienced.
The office offered exactly the type of calming environment that would be helpful and benefited from having a wheelchair lift, being mobile and being able to visit most of the 31 sites that the charity supports.
At 6½ tonnes, 12 feet tall and 26 feet in length, this was a big beast of a vehicle and needed specialist insurance and MOT. We undertook several repairs to make sure that we were giving the Ukrainians a safe vehicle that could be used with confidence.
I needed a co-driver and contacted my brother Duncan to ask if he could suggest someone who would drive across Europe in an enormous vehicle, during a heatwave, enter a country at war where you are uninsurable and under daily threat of missile attack. To my surprise and delight he volunteered himself!
As preparation works on the vehicle continued, we were a bit alarmed at the costs which were accumulating, and so we decided to start a specific appeal. Initially we thought a few thousand pounds would do it, but as we heard about the needs of the charity decided to set ourselves the target of £20,000!
In some ways this was perhaps the hardest part of the mission as neither Duncan nor I are natural fundraisers. We contacted everybody who we knew and carried out relentless social media, radio interviews and even television news. When we left we had raised about £14,000. When we returned we had raised over £21,500!
The first leg of the journey started in North-east Fife where the van had been based. After picking Duncan up at Edinburgh we headed the 313 miles to Hull for the overnight crossing to Rotterdam. This was the van’s first test as it had been sitting stationary for almost 18 months but it performed superbly well even in the scorching heat.
Arriving at Rotterdam in the morning we encountered the first post-Brexit challenge as we had to produce customs documents for entry into the EU. After over an hour of to-ing and fro-ing we eventually got our paperwork stamped and we headed off onto the Dutch motorway system.
This 530-mile leg was going to see us drive through the Netherlands and all the way through Germany to the Polish border. It was a long day and we arrived late, just across the Polish border in a motel run by a lady who had been trained as a cook at Loretto School, Musselburgh.
The following day we travelled on through Poland and on to Jarslaw, less than an hour form the Ukrainian border.
We left early the following day to navigate Polish/Ukrainian customs which was as confusing as we feared. A lucky mix of Scottish brass necking, a vehicle too large to turn and a lack of Google translate tonal subtlety somehow worked and we managed to cross in less than 60 minutes! Astonishingly it took longer to get into the EU from the UK than it took to go form the EU to Ukraine!
We met our Ukrainian colleagues and headed off to Lviv for the most terrifying driving experience of our lives.
Lviv is a busy city about 75 minutes from the border crossing. The population of 720,000 has been fairly static as many Lvivians who fled the country have been replaced by internally displaced people (IDPs) from other parts of the country. While it is in general safer than other cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv, air raid sirens are still frequent.
One of the problems is that with so many air raid alerts and so few missiles- people ignore them. In some ways its understandable as life needs to go on. Sometimes though its different- as we experienced on one of our days.
A few days after we left, 3 Russian missiles hit Lviv.
Lviv is a stunning city and a UNESCO heritage site, the architecture is stunning, and a modern vibrant culture exists. Many streets are cobbled and narrow and the traffic is…horrendous! Our GPS guided route through Lviv clearly didn’t consider a vehicle of the size of ours and we passed buildings, scaffolding and trams with literally millimeters of clearance!
Our first stop was to a school for blind children. It happened to be their last day of term and we were invited to watch their musical performances. The madness of war struck home when we parked next to the sand-bagged windows of their dining room/shelter. I can’t imagine the fear that a blind child would experience when the sirens wailed and the drones fell.
Our Ukrainian partners had brought some chocolates for them and lots of happy faces lit up when they were told what was in the boxes.
The following day we met our Ukrainian colleagues and purchased items from their request list. It’s an important part of Edinburgh Direct Aid philosophy that we give what people need, not what we have. They explained that many of the children were being excluded from education due to restrictions on teaching facilities. They explained that interactive whiteboards would be transformational. We were able to purchase four of them, the first of which was delivered the following week. We estimated that they cost about a third of what they would cost to buy in the UK- which just reaffirms the importance of buying local goods, in a local language and supporting the local economy.
At a nearby warehouse we bought educational games, interactive teaching aids, stationery and sports equipment and delivered these to an additional needs school, an orphanage, a school for deaf children and several centres for children getting ‘respite breaks’ from more dangerous areas of the country.
The children varied from babies to young people, and all had been impacted by the war in some way or other. The van is a wonderful asset for them and will allow Small Wins to provide music therapy support in many different locations.
Whilst we ran out of time to buy and deliver more, we have pledged more funds to Small Wins and their caring and enthusiastic team.
Crossing the Ukraine border on our way home, we saw a father dropping his wife and child off at passport control. He was of fighting age and prohibited to leave. Scenes like these cut deep and as fathers we just couldn’t imagine the pain and uncertainty that faces that family and thousands like them.
Ukraine is moving on to its next chapter and at times you forget you are in a war zone, then you get held up but a military column or have a latte next to a NLAWS anti-tank missile or hear the wail of an air raid siren.
There is now a new rhythm in Ukraine, the trauma of the mass refugee migration on the border has been replaced with much more two-way traffic, at least for women and children. There is better fuel security and better trade but the effects of the dam explosion in Kherson and concerns over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear plant are very real and alive.
What remains absolutely resolute is the Ukrainians resolve and their sense of identity. They don’t expect a quick win, so nor should we. It is vital then that we support them in all ways we can, especially those young children who have lost too much and seen too much.