Ongoing efforts to support Ukraine
In the face of the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Ukraine, local communities continue to mobilise to great effect. Despite the daily horror stories, there are many examples of personal efforts to help support the war efforts, groups of friends driving across Europe to deliver much needed goods and food, van owners relocating from Edinburgh to Poland to feed the queues of refugees at the Polish borders and countless other inspiring stories of people rallying to support the people of Ukraine.
In Scotland, the local group of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain has made a herculean effort to support friends and family far away – already managing to secure and set-up a new warehouse operation to process donations. The small team has reached out to their networks and connections to great effect, and we are seeing the eco-system of support coming together. In the initial days, this eco-system has been able to provide support and guidance on how this warehouse operation can scale safely and run efficiently supported by a volunteer force, and subsequent phases will look to deploy a website and underpinning inventory management system from the Scottish Tech Army that will support the operation and allow the team to increase scale with ease.
As we offer technology support in a situation like this, as with all of the projects we deliver, it is so important not to disrupt the day-to-day operation and to ensure that changes are made when the team is ready to adopt them.
This week, the team of skilled technology volunteers was able to demonstrate how donations of good and funds can be managed efficiently for the warehouse team. The goal is to help them to focus on the trickier logistics rather than mainstream donations. If this solution works for the Scottish locations, there are opportunities to extend this adoption to other locations and groups across the UK, utilising the principle of building once and deploying to many.
The speed of progress with the solution set-up has been wholly down to skilled volunteers offering their time to configure the prototype, working in a responsive and open-minded way to support the outcomes needed at each stage.
The response of those that have stepped forward to volunteer their time and talents has been amazing and inspiring – in many ways it is reminiscent of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. While we would all much prefer that these efforts were not needed, when circumstances such as these arise, it is a further demonstration of the power of commitment and creativity of volunteers in times of crisis.