What values underlie REACT’s activities?

What have we learned during our volunteering and what values underlie the activities of the REACT Foundation?

Even though we made the decision to establish REACT a few months ago, many of us had already gained extensive volunteering experience, not only during trips to Ukraine with other organizations, but also during many years of activity in other NGOs. Helping is not easy and sometimes even good intentions and motivation are not enough if you do not have experience, appropriate knowledge and determination.

What have we learned during our volunteering and what values underlie the activities of the REACT Foundation?

1. Aid goes directly to people (soldiers, medics, units) who need it and will use it directly on the front line, saving health and lives. We do not provide the aid through unverified intermediaries. We always make sure that our aid reaches precisely where it is needed.

2. We check the needs. Before starting the collection, we verify the needs of specific military units and on this basis we create shopping lists. The hardest part is always choosing who we help first. We would love to help everyone, but unfortunately there are always more people in need than resources available.

3. We try to make our activities as economical as possible. We look for optimally priced options while maintaining the highest possible quality of the support we provide. During trips, our transport trucks are fully loaded so as to make the most of the fuel. What don’t we do? We do not buy food in Poland and do not transport it throughout Ukraine – it is very uneconomical. We usually leave some aid at locations along our route. When we have space in our cars, we buy food in Ukraine itself (it is much cheaper) and delivery it directly to where it’s needed.

4. Transparency and accountability. The key assumption of REACT activities is full transparency of the foundation’s expenses. We want you to be able to check what every zloty was spent on. Therefore, after each trip, we settle accounts and publish a summary of the aid provided, documenting it with invoices and bills. We’are talking about the money donated to the Foundation by our supporters, so we take this commitment extremely seriously…

5. Volunteers’ safety. Trips to a war-torn country are not, by definition, the safest, but we try to reduce the risk to a minimum. Each of our volunteers is always equipped with an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit), a bulletproof vest and a helmet. Many of our volunteers have received medical training in providing medical assistance in war conditions. We always provide insurance policy for people delivering the aid to the military units, and before each departure, we discuss safety procedures and rules of conduct during the mission.

Our activities are a consequence of the evolution we have undergone over the last 5 years. In 2018, by organizing a fundraiser for the treatment of the patron of the REACT Foundation – Anna „Wiewióra” Babilon, we initiated The Squirell Team (Drużyna Wiewióry). Today we want not only to support individuals, but also to change the world into a slightly better place.We are grateful to you for helping us so far and for continuing to help us. Support REACT by donating to the fundraising 4fund.com/react.