From farm to warehouse
How Zeilen's logistics coordinators manage the many moving parts that keep humanitarian aid coming to Ukraine.
Today, we’d like to introduce you to two core volunteers who work tirelessly to make Zeilen’s work possible. Meet Andrey and Ira: our logistics coordinators.
By this point, you probably know what happens to our convoys once they’re packed and ready to go: we drive them straight to the Ukrainian border, where local volunteers pick them up to take them to their final destinations. This process is quick; it takes just a few days from start to finish. Preparing a convoy is a whole different beast, though: it requires a lot of coordination.
The logistics of our convoys are complicated. We need to source and receive all the medicines, medical equipment, and devices we pack into our ambulances. We need to coordinate the volunteers who will pack the ambulances. If there is space left in the cars, we need to figure out what to do with it and find useful humanitarian aid to put there. All this extensive yet unseen work rests on the shoulders of Andrey and Ira.
A typical scene while loading ambulances for departure at our warehouse
Like many of our volunteers, Andrey and Ira met in the long and confusing days right after russia attacked Ukraine on February 24th. Andrey laughs and tells Ira during our interview: “Remember that poster? I still have red paint on my shoes from it.” They met while preparing for an anti-war rally: turns out, they live just five minutes away from one another. They met before the rally to paint some posters (in red paint, as you might’ve guessed).
Ira says that in those first few weeks after the war started, many sprung into panicked action, but there were very few organised volunteering opportunities. Early March, she started collecting humanitarian aid, to help her friends to fill up the ambulance car that went to Ukraine - that would become the first Zeilen convoy. It all looked very different back then: “People brought us half-opened packs of paracetamol, plasters, and bandages. So many wanted to help, but there was little understanding of what people in Ukraine actually need. Everything was so chaotic.”
Along with our chairwoman Veronika and medical coordinator Maria, Ira helps packing supplies for one of our recent convoys
In the meantime, Andrey helped pack the first convoy and, right after, took a holiday to Barcelona with his family that they had planned long before the war. In Barcelona, Andrey helped in local volunteer organizations and tried to help Zeilen digitally, too. Once Andrey returned to The Netherlands, he shifted gears a little: “I figured somebody with more knowledge than me could handle the digital aspect of things. What was seriously lacking at that point was somebody who could coordinate simple but vital practical things: loading and unloading, a volunteer rota, these types of things.”
Andrey in his natural habitat
Eventually, Andrey and Ira organically divided their logistical spheres of influence: Ira started coordinating deliveries and communication with local partners, while Andrey managed the warehouse and the warehouse volunteers. Though the term “warehouse” was very loose at that time in Zeilen’s history: it was a farm. Both Andrey and Ira remember this as a very strange time: “We spent hours on a working farm every day. We were collecting and sorting supplies in a barn with sheep and goats,” Ira says.
Scenes from our first “warehouse” at the farm in Utrecht
After more than six months, things are much more formal and organized. Zeilen’s warehouse that Andrey coordinates is an actual warehouse, not a farm. And Ira coordinates receiving medical aid from healthcare institutions and medical equipment companies instead of collecting opened packs of plasters. It’s been quite a journey!
At the end of our conversation, I ask both logistical coordinators what volunteering has meant to them in these past months and what has been the most difficult.
Among other things, Andrey leads logistics for our 2000 Bikes for Ukraine project
“The most difficult thing for me has been finding balance,” says Andrey. “Since I coordinate so many things, I can’t just “switch off.” So I’ve not been as present for my family lately. It’s been hard. But my wife explained it to the children by saying that if we were in a situation [like the one in Ukraine], we’d want somebody like us to help. As for the meaning, it definitely gives a sense of community and purpose.”
Our logistics coordinator Ira at Convoy 7 departure
Ira echoes this sentiment: “The people I’ve met have been just incredible. Like Andrey: we live five minutes away from each other, but we would never have met otherwise… But I wish with all my heart that the circumstances of our meeting were different. At the same time, I’m amazed at the number of people willing to experience discomfort and use their time to do good each day.”