For Ukraine. With Ukraine

As people supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian defenders know, the work of NGOs like Mriya Aid is impactful and morally uplifting but also complex and difficult. Difficult because of the horrors and tragic loss of life each day. Difficult because of the long road ahead of us. Difficult because of malign actors and kremlin assets working to undermine Western help to Ukraine. 

In order to tackle these difficulties, we connect with others both in Ukraine and across the globe doing this important work. Connecting with others helps to share best practices and build up networks of support. Our outreach and work with trusted individuals and organisations is a real blessing for which we are truly grateful.

Although Mriya Aid governance, project planning, and activities are run out of Ottawa, Canada, we’re privileged and honoured to work together with Ukrainians and diverse supporters of Ukraine from around the world. 

Around the world and on the ground in Ukraine we work with contacts that we built up over the past decades and many new ones to help us get training and equipment to Ukrainian defenders and frontline workers. In 2023, our team in Canada set a goal to streamline and solidify our global networks of partners. Since May 2023, we have engaged in an “outreach and advocacy for Ukraine” campaign without expending a single dollar of donated funds.

This year, we’ll tell you about some of the incredible individuals and organisations we work with. Today, we’ll tell you about one of them. 

As part of our outreach and advocacy work, a few of us from the Mriya Aid Board of Directors - Lesya, Lubomyr, and Mark - had the pleasure and privilege of giving a number of talks to the student community at the University of Oxford - and of meeting up with some pretty great people in London! (Note: No Mriya Aid donor funds were used for this trip). In both cities, we met our dear friends, alumni of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program, and we made new friends in the Oxford University Ukrainian Society and at a UK-based NGO working in the sphere of humanitarian demining.   

Interacting face to face with dynamic, like-minded people brings many benefits for volunteers supporting Ukraine! Each meeting is a re-affirmation of support and encouragement of one another to stay strong to continue supporting Ukraine’s existential challenge and its historic chance to tear itself away from the oppression of the russian empire and the encroachment of the vacuous “russkyy mir”. Keeping connected motivates one to focus on the task at hand to uphold defence, justice, and recovery for a free, open, inclusive, and prosperous Ukraine. 

Due to Mriya Aid’s work on supporting Ukrainian defenders and frontline workers, we have made few public appearances and we’ve only given a handful of interviews since 2022. We vowed to start speaking more publicly in 2024 about what we do and about the need for the world to increase support for Ukraine. At the University of Oxford, we participated in two panel discussions and a podcast recording, and we met with students from the school of Public Policy, Diplomatic Studies, and Strategic Studies, as well as members of the wider community to discuss Mriya Aid and issues affecting Western volunteer-based NGOs providing humanitarian and non-lethal military aid to Ukraine. 

You can listen to the podcast here.

Our podcast host Erik Kucherenko, a policy and legal adviser to a member of the Parliament of Ukraine and an adviser to the Ukrainian delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, is currently completing his Masters in Public Policy at Oxford. 

Erik is a remarkable person - has he contributed to the Ukrainian Parliament's work within the Council of Europe, completed internships with members of the European Parliament and the Parliament of Canada, and he works towards fulfilling his ambition to maximise his contribution to Ukraine's recovery through his hard work and activism to become a member of the Parliament of Ukraine. With numerous published articles, last spring Erik provided Ukrainian Canadians with his perspective during his time at the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program.

Stay tuned to find out about other dedicated and remarkable supporters of Ukraine we work with across the globe. Visiting and connecting provided us all with an opportunity to share experiences, best practices and words of encouragement and support.

Meaningful connections help each of us across the globe draw the strength needed to work to support Ukraine.

By adding outreach, research, awareness raising, and advocacy for Ukraine to the work we do, we’re able to work innovatively and outside of the boundaries of our pre-war lives and regular jobs with diverse and other like-minded people supporting Ukraine. 

It is an honour and deepening relationships and connections to support Ukraine is the most precious reward we could ask for.

Let us all, across the globe, commit to double down our efforts. Stronger together. Разом до Перемоги! Together for a victorious and strong Ukraine! 

For further information about Mriya Aid or to donate, visit www.mriyaaid.ca and sign up for our newsletter about Ukrainian courage, valour, and ingenuity at news.mriyaaid.ca

A web search will show various organisations called “Mriya” - but there is only one “Mriya Aid”! Our supporters know that MriyaAid.ca is our only domain and website.