#We are strong together professional#
We hired a professional bus company because they work under contracts.
“You cannot put two mothers with four children in a car with a stranger to take them to Lithuania. All too aware of the potential risks of human trafficking, Strong Together quickly decided it was too risky to allow volunteers to take vulnerable people to Lithuania without professional oversight. Still, Edmundas and his crew knew they had to be very careful in organizing that next step. Then, they sat down together, ate at tables with crisp white tablecloths, slept a little, showered, and recovered as much as possible before deciding where to go next. “One of the most important things for a person fleeing war is dignity.”Įdmundas has no doubt that it was “definitely the best refugee center in the world.” First, everyone arriving at the center was greeted with a steaming hot bowl of Ukrainian borscht. An On-the-Ground ResponseĮdmundas and a unit of 27 volunteers immediately set up a refugee center on the Polish-Ukrainian border, transforming a four-star hotel into a relief station with military precision. Strong Together got in touch with us, and we helped get it off the ground. So we decided we needed to create a system where people could offer their flats and houses to refugees.”įor Strong Together, transitioning from a post-lockdown lull to an impending humanitarian crisis of high operational complexity required a new approach that was quick to implement, dependable, and infinitely scalable.Īnd when Edmundas and his team needed a website, Unicorns LT recommended Hostinger. “About two weeks before the war started, when we began to feel it was going to start, we began preparations. Then, on Wednesday, it was up and running, and we already had thousands of volunteers.” So, with the many thousands of Ukrainian refugees attempting to pass through the narrow corridor along the Lithuanian-Polish border, it soon became clear that the group needed to scale its operation rapidly. Housing, Hosting, and Solidarityīordered to the south-east by the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and to the south-west by Belarus, Lithuania shares almost 1,000 kilometers of land with the two nations in conflict with Ukraine. For a short while, the group disbanded until everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine. Edmundas returned to living his everyday life, hoping for that very thing. Two long lockdowns later, it seemed Strong Together would no longer be needed.
That’s how our organization functioned during the two quarantines, with thousands of volunteers helping people via a phone line we set up.” “We knew people needed help, so we thought we should bring volunteers together.
Still, the sustained strength and speed of the response to the Strong Together project speaks of an outpouring of solidarity that has not waned among the public despite almost three years of continued crises. That’s how we gathered almost 10,000 volunteers so quickly.” “First, we launched a public awareness campaign and published web banners and press releases, but the public really got involved when we created our website.
#We are strong together how to#
Back then, we were trying to think about how to help people who couldn’t leave their homes – now it’s the opposite.” “We tried to imagine how we could help those with health problems, people with disabilities, and those who are older. The initiative began in 2020 during the first Coronavirus lockdown in Lithuania to provide essential protections such as food and medicine to at-risk and vulnerable people. Strong Together is an easy-to-use online platform for willing Lithuanian families to offer a place in their homes and provide shelter to refugees. They are all staying at people’s homes – the idea is working.” Strong Together, Always “Not one person is sleeping in a station, school, or a public space. “We knew Russia was about to attack, and we knew we could do something to help.” Strong Together is the result. At the moment, Strong Together is a volunteer-led initiative created by the Pelėdos Squad of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU) to currently provide genuine, safe housing solutions to refugees of the war in Ukraine.Ī journalist and volunteer of the initiative and the LRU, Edmundas Jakilaitis is well-drilled in quick thinking and effective organization. In times of crisis, solidarity makes a difference. The volunteer website has raised over 1 million Euros and successfully housed over 33,000 refugees in Lithuania.
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