Day in, day out Dave van den Hout (45) from Tilburg sees the war suffering up close. In Moldova, he helps refugees from war-torn neighboring Ukraine. He has been doing this work for six weeks now with donations he receives from the Netherlands. He finds it difficult to let go of volunteer work, but the home front would rather see him return to the Netherlands today than tomorrow.
“Once you start, you really can’t stop,” says Dave from Moldova. He spent the first weeks in Poland, and since last week he has been in Moldova to help refugees from there. Dave is on a sabbatical and can afford it financially. He has friends in Ukraine and has been coming to Poland for twenty years. “As long as money is coming in, I want to be creative to spend the money in a good way.”
Of the six weeks, he was back in the Netherlands for one week, with his girlfriend. “My girlfriend is not really happy”, Dave laughs. “He has said a few times: ‘there is more to life’. But I can’t quietly watch Netflix on the couch, that makes me restless.”
Dave was trained as a social worker and he left for Poland on March 1. He had no plan, but any help was welcome, Dave knew. A few days later, he already had his own mission: to make fruit salads for the refugees from Ukraine.
“Fifty kilos of apples, fifty kilos of bananas. Fifty cans of pineapple and fifty cans of peaches. Every day again.” Together with other volunteers, he helped thousands of refugees. He now arranges hotel rooms and shelters for the Ukrainians from Moldova.
Over the past six weeks, Dave has seen war focus on the other side of Europe. “The war is close in Poland and Moldova. If you walk around here on the street, you see people queuing at a bank and for food and drink. You don’t have that street scene in the Netherlands. Just look on Facebook: at the beginning of the war people had a Ukrainian flag as a profile picture, you see that less now.”
The volunteers from the very beginning are tired, according to Dave. “They fall over from fatigue, but don’t want to give up. Because if you are involved yourself, you always go beyond your own limit. But the influx of new volunteers after six weeks is minimal.”
The donations Dave still sees pouring in keeps him going. “In the beginning I was shocked by all that money. But I am proud that every euro that I have spent has been spent one hundred percent on a good cause. I paid for my own overnight stays and the petrol.”
Dave is coming back to the Netherlands soon. He doesn’t know exactly when. “But I don’t think I can make it two more weeks for my girlfriend. Otherwise I no longer have a relationship, I’m afraid,” he laughs.
Via the Dave’s Facebook page people can still donate money.
Shortly after Dave’s arrival in Poland, Omroep Brabant visited him: