Since the start of the war in Ukraine, several aid organizations have been working to help the people of Ukraine. Exactly four years after Russia invaded Ukraine, volunteers from the Frisian Riders Foundation from Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland are rolling up their sleeves.
It is all assembly line work in the large storage shed just across the border from Drenthe. All people wear a yellow safety vest. This is necessary, because forklift trucks operate throughout the warehouse to move pallets with large batches of banana boxes. Those boxes do not contain bananas, but aid supplies for Ukraine. It is packing day.
“This is the burger box department that we fill with food,” says Arnaud Dijkstra, chairman of the Friese Rijders Foundation. At an assembly line, many volunteers put food into the boxes. “The boxes are then sent to the front line. A family can survive with such a box for two to four weeks.”
The Friese Rijders Foundation was founded after the first week of the start of the war in February 2022. The purpose of the foundation is to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Humanitarian aid is emergency aid in times of war. This concerns items that people need immediately, such as food, medical supplies and power supply.
And those things are desperately needed, says Oksana, who fled to the Netherlands in March 2022. For her it is a day with a special meaning. “I can’t live a normal life because in my mind I always think about those who couldn’t leave Ukraine for various reasons,” she says.
That is why she likes to roll up her sleeves and work with other refugees to do something for their fellow countrymen. “And also to support each other.”
Dijkstra notes that interest in Ukraine has waned somewhat over the past two years. “Of course you have had some other political events in the world, but on this day the whole world is thinking about what happened four years ago.”
But Dijkstra also sees an upward trend in the number of donations. The foundation receives many donations from Drenthe. “And we have one hundred and twenty drivers who are on a waiting list to drive a truck of relief goods to Ukraine.”
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