With just over a week since the US election, a year since October 7th and almost 1000 days of war in Ukraine, I am still in disbelief at the pace with which our world seems to be changing. This feeling is then often times compounded by a feeling of powerlessness in the face of the global challenges we face and our political systems' apparent inabilities to tackle them.
As the world can rely less and less on governments as stabilizing factors, civil society becomes particularly important. At Aid Pioneers, we are willing to step up. Our local partner organizations in regions such as Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria or the Horn of Africa are counting on us, and together with our many international partners and supporters, we will continue to serve them as effectively as we can.
To illustrate what we mean by this - and perhaps also to counteract your feeling of hopelessness a little bit - I would like to share a few of the successes that we have been able to celebrate together with our supporters and partners over the last few months, and which have given me hope that we can still make a small positive difference despite all the negative news.
🇱🇧In Lebanon, we installed our largest solar system 4 weeks ago (110 kWp) and are currently shipping another 150 kWp to our partner schools and hospitals to replace costly and polluting diesel generators.
🇺🇦Ukraine: Over the next 12-18 months, we will deliver around 25 40ft -containers of medical supplies with a total value of around €10 million to a network of 100+ hospitals.
🇸🇸South Sudan: In September, our first container of medical supplies worth $349,000 arrived and will be distributed to various hospitals, which are primarily treating refugees from Sudan.
🇸🇾Northwest Syria: We have secured funding to install another large solar system (100 kWp) for a clinic in Northwest Syria suffering from constant blackouts. This spring, the solar system will arrive alongside another 40-ft container with medical supplies.
🇪🇹Ethiopia: We are planning 3 more solar systems (250 kWp in total) and will send 3 containers with medical equipment with a total value of €1,000,000+ to clinics in Ethiopia – a country we only started working in this summer.
In the spirit of sharing some more positive stories in these difficult times, we are launching our post series “Hope in Action”, in which we will share one positive insight from our global projects per week on our LinkedIn and instagram channels, so please follow Aid Pioneers there in case you aren’t already doing so!
The photo was taken on our last trip to Ukraine in one of our local partners' warehouses from which the medical supplies we send are then distributed.
