Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, ladies round Poland have been making journeys to the Polish-Ukrainian border to supply rides to the multitudes of refugees in search of secure passage in another country.
Many of the greater than 4 million individuals who have fled Ukraine are ladies and kids, in keeping with the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees. And since each teams are at excessive threat of exploitation and trafficking, the volunteer collective Ladies Take the Wheel helps them make the journey.
“Feeling secure and safe is one in every of people’ primary wants,” stated Ella Jarmulska, 38, an entrepreneur from a village on the outskirts of Warsaw who helped discovered the group and serves as one of many drivers. “To supply them with some sense of safety was as primary a response as giving water to a thirsty particular person,” she stated.
Ladies Take the Wheel, an off-the-cuff group with about 600 members, makes use of Fb, WhatsApp and different messaging platforms to speak and coordinate help.
The amplified perils that ladies and kids face are a part of what motivated Ms. Jarmulska to situation an enchantment for feminine drivers on Fb after making her first journey to the border, close to the city of Dorohusk. On that journey on the onset of the warfare, Ms. Jarmulska noticed dozens of males standing by their automobiles outdoors the reception websites — rapidly erected facilities for arriving refugees — “trying like bouncers at a membership.”
As a girl, Ms. Jarmulska empathized with these arriving, alone or with youngsters, after a troublesome journey to a unique nation the place the language is international and males, nevertheless well-intentioned, are providing rides, generally late at evening. It could actually “add to the trauma and state of worry,” she stated.
“What can I do to make it simpler on them?” Ms. Jarmulska requested herself that night.
Kasia Garbarska noticed the dialogue on Fb and a possibility to additional mobilize the trouble, suggesting the volunteers journey in teams: an additional security precaution, she stated, and a strategy to maximize house.
By her job with the advertising and marketing division in Warsaw’s Metropolis Corridor, the place she has labored with a few of the reception factors for refugees within the metropolis, Ms. Garbarska heard the fears that feminine refugees expressed, together with the risks related to taking rides from unknown males.
“They don’t really feel secure,” stated Ms. Garbarska, 56, who volunteers as a driver at the very least as soon as every week. “So if we are able to do something to make them really feel just a little bit safer, that’s what we’ve to do.”
There isn’t any vetting course of for the drivers, however that’s being addressed, Ms. Jarmulska stated, including that she carefully examined an individual’s Fb profile earlier than accepting any request to hitch. Some automobiles are outfitted with blue-and-gold indicators of the group’s identify and its emblem — a van with the image for “ladies” beneath it. (The picture was designed by Ola Jasionowska, the artist behind the lightning bolt that grew to become the picture of the ladies’s motion in Poland two years in the past.) And volunteers are instructed to examine in at reception facilities and with the native authorities earlier than providing any transportation.
Ladies Take the Wheel will provide transportation and widen its community of feminine volunteers so long as there’s a want, Ms. Jarmulska stated. It’s a matter, she stated, of “displaying up along with your hand out and coronary heart open.”
Supply: NY Times
