Thank you, Rob, for the delicious chocolates that you brought for the Hamilton Estonian School from your recent trip to Ukraine. I know that you are a member of St. John Ambulance. Were you in Ukraine with them or on your own?
There are a number of affiliated Order of St. John organizations in various countries. The charter of St. John Ambulance Canada does not allow us to do work outside of Canada. But the charter of the Catholic one, the Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Malta and Rhodes, commonly known as the Order of Malta, allows them to do work around the world. They’re in 35 countries helping out. Every time there’s a flood, a famine, a war, an earthquake, the Order of Malta packs their bags and heads out. I cannot be a member though because I’m not Catholic. I went to Ukraine with them as a volunteer. My friends in the Order of Malta are forever teasing me about being the token non-Catholic.
What was the purpose of the trip?
I’m working on a wide variety of projects in Ukraine, one of which is feeding Ukrainian refugees inside Ukraine.
How would you define a Ukrainian refugee inside Ukraine?
These are people who had to flee their homes because the Russians were coming. The official UN term is internally displaced persons. Russia is occupying something like 20% of Ukraine. Ukrainians in that neck of the woods had to get the heck out of Dodge. One of the ways I support these refugees is by sending a shipment of food supplies every month, which are then distributed to the refugees.
This time we were in the Region of Kamianets-Podilskyi, in the city with the same name where they are responsible for all the refugees in the area around the city. In the villages where the refugees are housed, they’re put up in abandoned schools or other buildings which are fixed up for them. These poor people have nothing. The social assistance they receive is in the area of 40 Euros a month. Heating bills alone are between 60 and 100 Euros a month. They can’t get a job there. They’re literally living hand to mouth. They are so grateful for the food we bring.
One woman showed me a video of her former house which her neighbour had recently sent. A Russian missile had landed in the middle of it. Only a hole remained. This is a common plight of many of the refugees. Even when the war ends, there is no home to go back to.
There are videos in the media showing villages of perhaps 75,000 inhabitants with not a single building left standing. There’s an evil in Putin’s Russia that is just unspeakable. Torture for the sake of torture. Destroying villages just for the sake of destroying villages. There’s no aim to it. There’s no goal. They’re just like, let’s cause maximum pain and suffering. And there’s nothing really in it for them militarily.
The Ukrainians are sending their drones over, blowing up oil refineries, military bases and the like whereas the Russians simply drop bombs on Kyiv, Lviv and other cities. Once there was a rocket attack on a market. People were simply buying groceries. There was no military target in any way, shape or form. They just waited until the maximum number of people would be at the market to kill as many civilians as possible. It’s awful, just awful. It breaks my heart.
How does your monthly donation work?
I send money every month to the Maltez Romania. They go to the Romanian equivalent of Costco, called Metro there, to buy all the food, which is then driven to Ukraine and distributed to the refugee families. They were renting a trailer each time to transport the supplies. Upon determining that the cost of buying a trailer was the equivalent of renting for six months, I purchased a trailer for them.
Another project I’m working on is a therapy dog program. St. John Ambulance has a fantastic therapy dog program here in Canada. The Malteser Ukraine was just too busy and couldn’t deal with it when I first pitched the idea of establishing such a program there. However, Maltez Romania said they’d love to start it and suggested I use them as a test program. Perfect! I send them money every month which pays a partial salary for somebody to run it and for supplies like leashes and the special scarves the dogs wear. There’s a wonderful person named Gary Jack who is sort of the St. John Ambulance expert on therapy dogs. He’s now been to Romania twice to help them set up the program. I am not an expert on therapy dogs, my dog’s never been a therapy dog and I’ve never been an evaluator. Gary knows the technical side of things. I’m a supporter and a fan. I’m providing the funding and cheerleading.
One of the purposes of this trip was to do three days of therapy dog training with Gary. All the Romanian dogs and their handlers go into this program. Gary trained them on how to evaluate the dogs. We also did a pet first aid course. The Malteser Ukraine is now ready to establish the dog therapy program there too. So I’m flying a representative from Maltez Romania and one from Malteser Ukraine to Canada at the end of March to attend the St. John Ambulance conference and meet all the therapy dog people here. We’re going to take them on hospital and seniors’ home visits as well as mentoring visits to show them what we do here.
Maltez Romania introduced the idea of having the therapy dogs work with mentally handicapped people. We haven’t done this in Canada. It’s very clever. They have two leashes on each dog: one for the handler and one for the mentally handicapped person. These individuals are so happy around the dogs, which have been evaluated and deemed suitable to work with children.
Another fantastic thing that Maltez Romania does is visit schools that the refugee children attend to provide them with much needed cheer. They go to Ukraine every two months for three days, visiting different schools each time. I participated in the most recent trip. In the school gym, they set up a bouncy castle and activity centres, where they do colouring activities and face painting for example and play soccer. Maltez also brings a food trailer where the volunteers make hotdogs for the kids and stew for the adults. I was there peeling potatoes and helping.
The kids just love it. There’s really no support for them, so these are super treats. They appreciate that someone cared. It’s so heartwarming and nice to see the kids happy again. The parents really appreciate it too. It is a break from the difficulties in their lives, where news of homes being bombed and relatives killed or maimed is a daily occurrence for these refugees.
Another thing Maltez Romania does to assist the refugees is operate a one-week summer camp. They pay for a bus to pick up the kids in Ukraine along with some of the moms and drive them to Romania to attend the camp. It is such a blessing for the kids. I was told two stories by a woman who works for Maltez Romania. When asked what they liked most about the camp, the kids said there’s no air raid sirens. We get to sleep through the night. The other story was about the last night of camp last year. The boys kept going outside for 5 or 10 minutes and coming back in. This happened over and over again. The staff, wondering what the heck was going on, went outside to investigate. The boys were crying because they didn’t want to go back to Ukraine the next day and they didn’t want to cry in front of their friends. How does that not break your heart?
I also support refugees in hospitals where the old style of families having to provide essentials for hospital stays still tends to prevail. But what if you’re far from family? Volunteers fill this need by making kits with underwear, t-shirts, a gown, a toiletry kit, etc. along with a little backpack to put it all in. I bought a whole batch of those to give out. I’ve received lovely photos of people getting their stuff. They’re all sitting there, with missing arms and legs. Heartbreaking.
Do you feel the objectives of this visit were satisfied?
Absolutely! You know, it kind of drives me crazy when you hear people say, oh, I can’t solve world hunger so I’ll do nothing. I heard about a documentary filmmaker from Newfoundland on CBC Radio. He is one of these people who makes an annual donation to World Vision, who then sends out a card saying “I’ve donated two chickens to a family in Africa in your name.” World Vision Canada, upon his asking whether he could make a documentary about this, gave their permission. What interested me about this was that part of the project involved interviewing professors of macroeconomics, who said these donation plans are a waste of money, they really don’t help anybody. They don’t help world hunger in the slightest. The filmmaker then accompanied an aid volunteer who had purchased 20 chickens and drove with him to the ten families who were to receive two each. The families were so excited, saying this will change their lives. To start with, they don’t harvest the eggs. They hatch them for more chickens to create a flock. Soon they have this flock, which provides them with meat they can eat, chickens to sell to earn money and they also now get the eggs too. From a world hunger perspective, it does nothing but from the perspective of those families, it’s life-changing. That’s kind of the way I look at what I do for Ukraine. For those refugee families who can’t afford to buy food, getting the monthly food packet means hey, we have food. We can eat nicely tonight. It makes a big difference.
And that’s my thing. Don’t try to solve world hunger or the war in Ukraine. Try and help someone and focus on what you can do. If all you can do is donate $10 to Ukrainian relief efforts, great. If you can do more, great. Just do what you can do.
Great advice. You’ve been to Ukraine before. How many times have you visited? Would you go again?
This was my third visit. I’m actually going again this year, on my way to Laulupidu in Eesti. I’ll be doing first aid training courses.
I wonder if you have a comment on the general atmosphere in Ukraine since your previous visit. Had it changed?
Yes. I would just say everybody was very tired. They’re going to fight to the bitter end. They know they have no choice. They have no misconceptions about who Putin is or what he wants to do to Ukraine. They have to keep fighting. They know their fate if they ever surrendered or even agree to a ceasefire. It just buys them five years until Putin can completely re-mobilize and create this massive army and then come storming through again. They can’t give in. This whole silliness with Trump is they can’t stop fighting, especially with no security guarantees. Joe Biden had a great security guarantee: If you ever attack again, Ukraine automatically becomes a member of NATO. Of course Putin wouldn’t agree to that. I think Trump is confusing peace with surrender.
I cannot tell you how fulfilling it feels to go to Ukraine and see these kids and their families, how happy they are to get food. I used to give money to Malteser International, which would just go into one big pot and go somewhere in Ukraine. Because of these visits, I know who’s doing what. I’ve met the people distributing the food. It really makes me feel good.
Were there any scary moments while you were there? Did you feel in danger?
No, I didn’t. You just have to accept that there’s a war going on and you could be standing at the wrong spot at the wrong time. There’s a possibility but there’s also a possibility I could be hit by a bus. I equate them the same.
Have you provided other assistance to Ukraine in addition to what you’ve already mentioned?
Actually, yes. They are desperate for generators so I have purchased a number of those. I have also bought over 2,000 St. John Ambulance first aid kits, about 1,000 fleece blankets and over 1,000 backpacks for Ukrainian refugees who have come to Canada.
I supported another initiative in Ukraine as well. Where there are foodstuffs available, these incredible Ukrainian women get together and prepare ingredients for soups and other hearty meals. The ingredients are then dried and vacuum sealed into meal packets which are good for months. They are distributed to refugee families who might be barely surviving in bombed out villages when there’s no longer a grocery store or even a useable kitchen because it’s been bombed and you’re living in a basement. But you can still boil water. You add the contents of one of those packets and instantly they have soup. We bought a couple of thousand of those.
Rob, you are an amazing, generous person. Thank you for being such a wonderful supporter of Ukraine and of Estonia as well. Slava Ukraini!
Interview by Merike Koger
Photos: Rob Zeidler’s private collection
