Piet Spijkers from Tilburg has been helping children in Ukraine with his foundation for almost twenty years. He follows the situation with horror, as Russian President Putin appears to be on the warpath. Spijkers: “I’m working on it day and night. It’s been eight years of war, but now it’s going to escalate.”
He gets emotional when he talks about the difficult situation in Ukraine. Spijkers has often visited the Eastern European country since 1992. “It has been rumbling in eastern Ukraine for some time, but we are now really preparing for the worst.”
Spijkers started in 1992 offering help to children in the oncology children’s hospital in the town of Lviv. “At the time, that was the ‘Chernobyl hospital’, where children were victims of the nuclear disaster.” The foundation renovated the building and, for example, provided new beds, but also offered knowledge and expertise.
For example, Spijkers arranged with his foundation that doctors and nurses from the Ukrainian hospital could do an internship at the TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg. Spijkers also started other projects through the children’s hospital. “I saw a lot of orphans there, so I went to an orphanage to help. When I saw a deaf child, I contacted an institute for the deaf to help there.”
Today a lot of responsibility rests with the people he has met over the years in Ukraine. “I’ve met a lot of people over the years. And I also have foster children in Ukraine, whom I supported when they were growing up,” says Spijkers. “They now help with projects of the foundation.”
He himself goes to Ukraine once a year. He now arranges most of the work from the Netherlands. He keeps in touch via Skype and telephone. “I have a lot of conversations about what they desperately need and how we can help them there.”
With the foundation Spijkers also supports a number of families with a disabled child. The Tilburger is perhaps the most concerned about them these days. “If families have to flee from eastern Ukraine, that becomes a problem. You cannot transport a disabled child like that.”
The foundation has three ambulances. “But with three ambulances we cannot transport 27 children at once.” He is afraid of what is to come. “I am not afraid that Ukraine will be overrun in one go, but the entire system in the country will be disrupted. For most families it will therefore be a real disaster if Putin continues.”
According to Spijkers, the common man is the victim and that makes him feel powerless. “I can’t do anything about it. It is in and in sad what is about to happen,” he says sadly. All he can do from the Netherlands is to keep his eyes and ears open for the help his people in Ukraine are asking for.
“I would consider myself weak if I looked away now. Right now I really add some gas.” For example, he orders aids in Germany to be transported to Ukraine. Although it appears that this may no longer be possible with the latest developments. “There is already no truck that wants to drive there.”