June 28, 2022, Bucharest
Today marks 4 months since the first trucks with food and strictly necessary resources started to cross the border from Romania to Ukraine, within the CARE for Ukraine project. It is a crisis in which the CARE global confederation – an organization with 75 years of experience in the fight against social injustice, poverty and all forms of exploitation – intervened from the first moments of the war to support the affected population. Their actions are implemented in Romania with the support of two organizations specialized in social intervention – the SERA Romania Foundation and the Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations for Children (FONPC).
23,8461 kg of food and resources for 29,751 people under siege were transported with the support of the Vrancea Red Cross.
“This is a time when individual support is important, but not enough. That is why we have joined forces and are implementing this project together with the CARE confederation and with the partnership of almost 30 associations and foundations, each specialized in a different level of humanitarian intervention. This important result, 238 tons of food for tens of thousands of people under siege, would not have been possible without the support of the Vrancea Red Cross. With their help, we reached exactly where it was most needed.” – Bogdan Simion, executive director of SERA Romania
Logistics coordination for emergency interventions means work carried out exclusively in risky situations.
CARE’s humanitarian intervention procedures have already been run in 104 countries and in support of more than 90 million vulnerable people. For the action dedicated to Ukraine, specialists from all over the world gathered in Romania to ensure the best ways to support the affected population. One of these specialists is the Australian Timothy Allen, who has been working in the CARE team for almost 10 years, during which time he has carried out more than 25 intervention projects within the CARE Emergency Response Team. His specialization is that of logistics coordinator for emergency interventions, which means work carried out exclusively in risk situations, whether interventions in areas affected by natural calamities, war or its aftermath, armed conflicts – all involve exposure maximum risk of those who accompany the teams that come to support the population.
“During the intervention in Ukraine, I was impressed by the resilience of people during wartime. Ukrainians give you the feeling that they are very prepared for everything that happens, and you rarely see despair on their faces, rather calmness and determination to do the best they can in this dramatic situation, which they face with immense courage.” – Timothy Allen, Emergency Response Specialist and Logistics for CARE Australia
The work carried out in the CARE for Ukraine project was made possible by the infrastructure of the Vrancea Red Cross, led by Rodica Davidean. The 238 tons of aid from CARE were directed to regional hubs located in Focșani and Siret. From here the trucks are loaded and leave for the border, then reaching the hub in Uman or other nerve points in Ukraine. In these 4 months, more than 60 transports were carried out and more than 26,000 km were traveled through the affected areas of Ukraine, in maximum risk conditions.
Thousands of kilometers of road where the only moving vehicles are the Vrancea Red Cross trucks, carrying CARE for Ukraine aid.
“If at the beginning we unloaded the CARE aids in the hubs organized by the Ukrainian state and the local Red Cross organizations, which then assumed the responsibility of redistributing them to the areas where help was urgently needed, over time, the Vrancea Red Cross trucks have increasingly advanced into war-torn territory to reach the affected civilian population directly. We are now distributing aid to dozens of refugee centers and partners in Ukraine. The stories of those who broker this support are impressive. On the one hand, there are our truck drivers, who risk their lives and sometimes travel thousands of kilometers without meeting another convoy or car on the route, because these are not easy areas to transit. Then the volunteers who take the aid packages to those in need. Sometimes they leave the food in front of a bunker and run, because the periods between bombings are short, and there are people in the basements for whom these aids are vital.” – Rodica Davidean, Director of the Vrancea Red Cross
The organizations and projects supported by CARE and implemented at the national level by the SERA Romania Foundation with the support of CARE France and FONPC are: YouHub Association, FARA Foundation, ESTUAR Foundation, CARUSEL Association, ESPERANDO Association, Parada Foundation, AMURTEL Aid Association Romania, Baia Autism Association Mare, Create Yourself Association, ECLER, The International Foundation for Child and Family, Q-ARTS Association, The Soci Association
