Vetted and Needed Aid for Ukraine

Medical Donation Matching

In the final months of 2024, Distribute Aid made a humongous aid matching effort for medical donations to Ukraine. Our organisation found a donor with medicines available in Europe and we circulated the list of offers to aid organisations in the country. This donation matching took up a lot of our work for the response, and resulted in some introductions directly between the medical aid donor and Ukrainian groups, such as Project Nadiya.

In the end, Distribute Aid did not facilitate the shipping of any of the medical donations, since the groups who were interested all had some tie to supporting military actors. This is understandable in the case of Ukraine, since hospitals and field clinics would not turn away injured Ukrainian soldiers, and cannot guarantee that the donations sent by Distribute Aid will solely go to civilian actors. However, it is a core tennet of Distribute Aid’s that we do not support military actors as a purely humanitarian organisation. For that reason, we decided to facilitate the connection of medical equipment with organisations in country, and chose not to organise the aid transport ourselves.

Shipment arrival Donetsk

Distribute Aid also delivered one aid shipment to our partners in the Shakhtarsky Microdistrict in Donetsk Oblast. This aid shipment was initiated months prior, and sent via sea from the US. We collaborated with the UN Logistics Cluster for the final delivery LHI Ukraine and Dream and Do!. LHI’s partenrs have also also launched a new organization called Ukraine's Frontline Hospitals. This organization is focused exclusively on civilian healthcare projects, and Distribute Aid included them in the direct connection to the medical aid donor. This shipment contained Baby Items, Blankets, Children's Clothing, Men's Clothing, Personal Care Items, School Supplies, Shoes, Sleeping Bags, Toys, and Luggage.

Customs & Logistics Advising for other NGOs

Finally, Distribute Aid’s Logistics Coordinator spent time advising and assisting other aid organisations on complex customs matters to help the delivery of humanitarian supplies. This included advising on sending aid from Poland to Lviv, and Scotland to Odessa. One organisation got in touch with us for a matter where 7.5 tons of humanitarian aid was stuck at the Polish border. Distribute Aid helped with documentation and paperwork to get the aid moving into Ukraine, and made introduction to logistics providers to avoid similar issues in the future. We were able to advise the sending party of a different route to take for their future aid consignments which streamlined their process and will avoid delays or possible refusals at the border. Distribute Aid was also able to significantly reduce their sending costs via introductions and training to the Logistics Cluster working process, a change that means the sending organisation can donate more money directly to the groups in Ukraine they are supporting.

Distribute Aid’s Continued Support for Ukraine

As of the start of 2025, Distribute Aid’s leadership has decided to make the organisation’s support of Ukraine a regular part of DA’s work to support displaced people in Europe. We will therefore be closing out this fundraiser and instead fold our Ukraine response into our European project. More than 2 years into the war, the logistics situation for Ukraine has stabilised and is now familiar to our logistics team in general, and therefore no longer needs a specialised team member to support. The change should ensure a continued effort to support Ukraine whenever possible by our operational capacity.