Volunteering for 3.5 years in #Ukraine – link to full talk in description

See the full keynote here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnkQkEib48psJeocqexarCdumT3Nu_6w&si=9OcVyHVQb7sg9l31

#ukraine #volunteer #kyiv #mentalhealth #urbanism #tacticalurbanism #bikes #bikes4ukraine #cycling #lviv #warzone

I’ve spent three and a half years volunteering in Ukraine, doing whatever I can with the things I can do to help the Ukrainian people. And I tell you, it’s been a wild ride. Thank you. It’s been a really wild ride. And I just really want to tell stories, positive stories. First, the question I get basically everywhere is, um, it’s Ukraine, Michael. Like, what the hell happened there? How’d you end up in Ukraine? Good question. Short answer. Somebody asked me to come. Somebody asked me for my help. I received a personal and professional appeal back in April 2022 from these two cool urban planning dudes. They were in Leiv and that city was under pressure. They have 700,000 people and 200,000 people arrived almost overnight, internally displaced people. Millions of people hammering through their train station heading for Europe and safety. Mobility was paralyzed. Gridlock on the streets from all these new cars. You had public transport over capacity. And these guys are going, um, what do we do? They’re brainstorming. What What do they do in Europe? What do they do in Europe? They ride bikes for transport, used bikes as a mobility solution, and then they’re like, “Oh my god, we have to ask that guy in Copenhagen who literally wrote the book about this topic.” And then they’re like, “Oh, he’s never going to answer.” Like, he’s not even going to read the email. Did I read the email? Oh, yeah. I answered in under 10 minutes. I zoomed with him the next day and I said, “Yo, guys, I am in. I don’t know how I’m going to transport used bikes from Denmark or Europe to a hot war zone. I’m going to figure this out.” And I did. I started a nonprofit. In July 2022, the first truck of many left Copenhagen filled with used bikes heading for Ukraine. That first shipment went to refugee camps in Leviv. Bikes for adults for mobility, bikes for kids for activity, giving them something to do to take their mind off of everything that they had experienced. And it was beautiful from day one. Seeing the joy and the gratitude from these people, just like giving them a used bike, something that we take for granted, but that used bike was amplified. Now, the bikes, they go to social workers and volunteers who use them to deliver food, water, medicine, humanitarian aid all over the country to the most vulnerable citizens. 40 cities and towns, 40% of Ukrainians still need regular humanitarian aid. But these bikes, they arrive, registered as humanitarian aid, and then they turn around and start delivering it, enabling Ukrainians to help each other. I just love that poetry. Bikes are awesome. They’re resilient. They’re flexible. They’re easy to fix. They can be shared by many people in one day. They can navigate any bombed landscape that you throw at them. And with a massive impact, I’ve measured it. Just one of my bikes in the course of one year is going to do all of these things. Almost 11,000 kilometers riding the roads. 18,000 kg of goods transported. So, we are easing the logistics burden. Very important in a war zone. Multiply that by all the bikes we’ve sent so far. The numbers are astronomical. Multiply that by the the thousands and thousands of bikes that are still needed in Ukraine. I know that bikes are an invaluable tool in times of war, crisis, and disaster. I’ve researched it. I’ve written about it. But man, three and a half years in Ukraine, I just understand it. I I see it. I witness it all over the country. The humble bicycle changing lives in a war zone zone.