Against the Odds, Together We Delivered Hope

To those who walked this path with us in any way - we are deeply humbled by the compassion, determination, and solidarity shown by so many of you - your actions have turned challenges into victories and despair into hope.

On our 9th day from entering the Polish border, we officially left Poland in the small hours of Sunday the 15th December into Ukraine.

Once past UA customs which took a very short time, we drove to our destination of Lviv and arrived at 0830hrs to the waiting firefighters to whom the fire engines would ultimately belong to.

We didn’t even switch the engine off on one of the vehicles before it began its journey to its new operational home 900km away from Lviv. The firefighters were quite emotional – if I can share with you part of a message we received.

*I’m deeply impressed not only by the support you provided but by the realization that it is possible to overcome the system like this. Eight days to change a regulation and release the vehicles - that is something unreal, I thought it was unreal. I was really worried for you, but I could not have imagined this could happen. I simply can't believe what happened. Usually, it’s big cities that receive such help, not communities and fire safety brigades like ours. You need to know that for us, this is more than a fire engine and equipment support. Believe me, what I’m feeling inside right now is indescribable. I’ve been trying to write a thank-you message, but I keep typing and deleting - it’s happened several times already because I have so many thoughts.*

*The thing is above all this shows us that we are supported, that we are not alone. This gives us hope, the desire to live, and the will to continue our work and our fight. At the forum, those guys from other communities asked me how I managed to get help from you. They couldn’t believe that no higher-ups negotiated this for us and that I didn’t pay anyone anything all I did is I sent you that message asking for help.*

This message for us is why we do what do. Not for accolade, reward or recognition rather someone asked us for help and we had the means to provide that life changing help.

Many of you will never have heard of SERA before this trip, we are happy to go under the radar and just get on with what we can rather than attend award ceremonies or pat ourselves on the back on social media.

I love the quote from Desmond Tutu “Do your little bit of good where you are, its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world”.

For many of you reading this post, the success has only come due to your action, raising your voice to the injustice that we endured and we want to wholeheartedly thank you for your little bit of good which overwhelmed the world.

Whether supporting folks in war torn Ukraine or spending time with a lonely person in your street, if we all do what we can, when we can – the world will be a better place – even if it's only for a little while.