Being a volunteer at Finest, Rivneska oblast.
Driving straight from Lviv by bus, I arrived in this small house in the countryside, somewhere
in between Dubno and Rivne, the region’s capital.
The house set up by FinEst, and rented to us by the local community is both small and
comfy, with a nice little garden at the back where we can do our activities. With volunteers
having a wide range of skills, spanning from educational to logistic, the NGO is working on
multiple fronts.

First and most notably, it is helping send essential equipment to front line workers. Anything
can be repurposed and reused in the front, apart from hygiene material. This is why a lot of
the packages we send to the front are care products: Razors, dry showers, wep wipes,
shampoo, soap, Q-tips… As one of the FinEst’s founder says, “helping the soldiers keep their
humanity”. With a shortage of men, soldiers are forced to stay on frontlines without access to
basic toiletries for weeks if not months. That receiving and packing activity is taking a good
part of the days there. We also send medical equipment when needed, such as hospital
clothes, diapers, tourniquets, medicines.

Because some volunteers have teaching backgrounds, we also have English classes set up
in the local community and Rivne, where the ukrainians can enjoy classes done by native
speakers, an important step as the country is inevitably strengthening its ties with western
governments.

As part of the war effort, we also started crafting camo nets for the front. In the garden we
have at any time a camo net in construction. Volunteers can come and go as they please
when free to net some. It is a long process, but the result is always satisfying to witness. And
there is nothing better for team building than doing simple and repetitive manual labor, with
music in the background, whilst toasting in the blazing countryside sun. Those nets are sent
to different units on the front line with whom the NGO is in touch with. In this modern warfare
battlefields, nets are mandatory to protect soldiers and equipment from surveillance and
suicide drones who are constantly hovering above the front.

All of those activities are punctuated by socializing events with the local community, team
building outings. I cannot even start expressing my gratitude towards Tarja and Finest.

I have learnt so much about everything, from the intricacies of a NGO operation, to life in a
country at war, to the local customs. Ukraine is a special place, even more so in the
countryside where the sight of a foreigner is a seldom occurrence. Tarja has a heart of gold,
and a combative spirit that is and will continue to be a model in my life.

-Maxime