Rotary in the Ukraine

While in Mykolaiv, I was able to meet up with a member of the Mykolaiv Rotary Club. I had tried to meet with the club president for Mykolaiv but he was overseas. Only a few of the Rotarians spoke English so I was then referred to Rotary club member who spoke English. I discussed this with my Global Care Force team leader and I could tell that he was a little nervous. I had known that Mykolaiv was in a Russian speaking part of the Ukraine but I was unaware of the many Russian agents who had previously operated in area. My team leader was worried that my contact may have been with one of those Russian agents.  We went cautiously to Artem’s place of work after we returned from seeing clinic in the villages. Once we could see inside the building, it was apparent from the brightly lit interior, the Ukrainian flags and uniforms that this was a Ukrainian establishment. 

Artem is an past club president and speaks excellent English.  We discussed potential projects for collaboration with other Rotary clubs and districts. Mykolaiv was partially surrounded during the initial Russian advance in February and March 2022. The Russians were driven back by the Ukrainians after 1-2 months of intense combat before the positions stabilized. That short period of occupation and the ongoing nearby combat created many needs, some which could be addressed by Rotary. Interestingly, Artem works for the Mykolaiv Business Support Center which seems to be a combination of a Chamber of Commerce and full time paid Rotary club. His work involves helping facilitating businesses in the Mykolaiv oblast including any project that helps businesses run and people work.  His projects include setting up daycare so that people can have their children cared for so that they could go to work, programs that educate women to do jobs that were left vacant when men were mobilized, projects that facilitated companies to provide water to families affected when the Russians blew up the main water line into the city and many others. 

A common feature of the Russian invasion is that they destroyed Ukrainian health centers and hospitals whenever they could. They bombed hospitals, burned medical equipment, destroyed medical supplies and killed or drove away medical workers. Healthcare is a prime need of the area and Artem has since coordinated global grants to replace some of the medical equipment that had been destroyed. Since I had already written a Rotary Foundation Global Grant for medical equipment for Uganda, we agreed that I could write another global grant for medical equipment for one of the hospitals in the Mykolaiv region. Artem will collect the information on one of the local hospital’s greatest needs and we will use that package to develop a comprehensive needs assessment to formulate Global Grant request for the Rotary Foundation. 

I can’t say that I am surprised, but even in wartime, Rotary is there to help.