After some of the hundreds of black students stranded in the besieged city of Sumy, Ukraine, made desperate pleas on social media for help earlier this month, a group of volunteers swung into action to help them safely out of the zone. war.
Black Women for Black Lives, a new coalition committed to helping black residents escape Ukraine in the face of Russian invasion, took student appeals to the international community with the hashtag #SaveSumyStudents (save Sumy’s students).
The group created a petition on the Change.org website, which received thousands of supporters, urging governments to urgently react to the crisis. In addition, they distributed more than $55,000 in donations to nearly 500 students stranded in Ukraine to cover food and necessities.
In about a week, the group announced that, after tireless advocacy work by his coalition and other volunteers, the Red Cross sent some buses to carry out the safe movement of “all black students stranded in Sumy”.
The three founders of Black Women for Black Lives — Tokunbo Koiki, Patricia Daley and Korrine Sky — barely knew each other until a few weeks ago, according to Koiki, but they shared a collective anguish over seeing people like them facing discrimination as they tried to flee Ukraine. The three women connected via Twitter and formed the organization the first weekend after the Russian invasion began.
Since then, the group has raised more than $250,000 from donors around the world to help black refugees, particularly African students fleeing the conflict. They also partnered with the Airbnb platform to help provide temporary housing through the company’s charitable arm. Recently, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield praised the group’s work, noting that she is “very proud to see women of color taking the lead.”
“It all started with a tweet,” Koiki told CNN Business. “I wanted to do something for us that was done for us, and I think a lot of people around the world identified with that.”
As members of the global African diaspora mourned the plight of black refugees in Ukraine online, they formed digital coalitions like Black Women for Black Lives and Black Foreigners in Ukraine, which provide emergency support. to the African community involved in the current Russian invasion.
More of three million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country last month, according to the latest United Nations calculation, and more than two million people are estimated to be displaced within the country.
While some neighboring countries welcomed white Ukrainian refugees with open arms, many black residents of Ukraine reported episodes of abandonment, racism and even violence as they sought safe passage.
In 2020, nearly a quarter of the 76,000 foreign students in Ukraine were African, the BBC reported, citing government figures. Advocates say these students were drawn to the country’s relatively cheap tuition and easy access to European job markets. The Ukrainian government reported in 2015 that foreign students pump more than $500 million a year into the Ukrainian economy — almost the entirety of the country’s public higher education funding, according to a former education official.
As African students stranded in the country at the start of the war launched pleas for help on social media, online volunteer groups sprang up to ensure that some of the most vulnerable refugees trying to escape were not left behind.
“We are black and we came to save our own,” Janine Anthony, a UK sports journalist and volunteer working with Black Foreigners in Ukraine, told CNN Business. “We protect our own if no one protects us.”
In a war that was accompanied by the Internet like no other, these volunteers turned to a variety of technological tools. There are chat rooms in the Clubhouse and threads detailed on Twitter that share updates on the local situation; Telegram chat with features for those on the front lines; cryptocurrency donations and NFTs to create funds for those in need; and online petitions calling for action to help Ukraine’s black residents.
“In the beginning, students used social media to tell the world what they were going through and facing when trying to leave Ukraine,” says Koiki. “I knew that when we started using social media to amplify our voices and the message we were trying to get across, people would be sensitized.”
Koiki said he hopes the group’s efforts can “show what is possible to achieve” with collective action, even if they start with something as seemingly ephemeral as social media. “I can’t move mountains, but if I as an individual are taking action and attacking this mountain, and everyone else is doing it too, together we can create an avalanche that will bring it down.”
Photos — Refugees leave Ukraine because of the war
Black Foreigners in Ukraine kicked off with a Twitter Spaces meeting led by Glory “Duwa” Attaochu in Atlanta. The singer and content creator said that at first she tried to use her room at the Clubhouse, with 3,000 followers, to spread the messages of African students she saw on the Internet, but then switched to the competing service of Twitter at the invitation of a listener.
“It was my first time at [Twitter] Spaces, and we literally ran that Space room for 24 hours straight, no sleep,” he added. “And it just exploded.”
Attaochu said he soon received several private messages from people around the world asking what they could do to help. Among them was Ephraim “Phoenix” Osinboyejo, who offered to help translate online maps and coordinate escape routes for African students.
In its effort to help black students in Ukraine, the group also had to face the pitfalls of social media, particularly the fact that information shared on the Internet is not always accurate. The group is now doing its best to act with the urgency that war demands, while working to analyze and disseminate student messages and eliminate bureaucracy in aid distribution as quickly as possible.
“This is my job, always trying to guarantee the veracity of the information”, comments Janine. “So no one, none of us in the group, will be accused of propagating false information.”
Black Foreigners in Ukraine now has 27 volunteers who are using all available tools to provide direct support to those seeking safe passage. They run a number of groups on Telegram, including one for those without legal documents and trying to flee the war.
The group helps students connect to travel together more safely and find housing. It also offers tips on its website, such as a guide to creating cryptocurrency wallets to receive donations or upload a smartphone wireless.
The group has raised about $15,000 in donations, mostly through cryptocurrencies, and shares a public spreadsheet of how those funds are being distributed to help those on the ground.
Going forward, Anthony says it’s It is imperative to offer legal assistance, visa support and academic relocation services so that the lives of these students and refugees are not jeopardized by the war in Ukraine.
Black Women for Black Lives is also working to review requests for donations, acting on a life-or-death urgency.. The group reviews applications for financial assistance created through a Google form available on its website and distributes the funds directly to students and refugees trying to leave Ukraine, typically submitting donations of $50 or $100 at a time.
Koiki, co-founder of Black Women for Black Lives, said she is impressed by the amount of outpouring of support she has received from black women and allies around the world, offering the skills, time and money they can.
“You see the worst side of humanity, but you also end up seeing the best with the responses to these tragic circumstances,” comments Koiki.
In addition to helping people stranded in Ukraine, these actions are helping to build community. Janine may have just met the fellow volunteers she’s been working with or the students she’s mentoring for safety, but she says, “I don’t think we’re strangers anymore. We are a family, and the family stays together.”
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
