True Beauty Shines Within - Personal Takeaways from My Journey to Ukraine

-by Masami Sato

At the onset of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, four local business women rushed to the train station in the city of Uzhhorod as hundreds of thousands of displaced families tried to get to the western border to escape the country.

Within days, the city was overwhelmed with people who’d left their homes carrying only small plastic bags of belongings. They were not able to or allowed to carry luggage. They struggled to find shelter in the cold winter nights. Food was scarce. Little help was available from the government as panic spread to the entire country.

These four women in Uzhhorod took the situation into their own hands. One of them opened up her commercial kitchen and gathered volunteers to cook for thousands of children and families day after day. They quickly found places for mothers and children to sleep and to receive the support needed. The train station was quickly converted into a makeshift ‘mother and child’ facility.

In the chaotic months that followed, it is said that nearly two million people went through this small city of mere 110,000 residents. The group led by these four women cooked up and served over half a million meals. That’s true determination, generosity and unconditional love in action.

I’m grateful that I just had the opportunity to visit their city and experience what’s happening with the work of amazing people like them as well as the impact of our Members' collective support through the projects run by B1G1 Worthy Cause, ChildAid.

Resilience and Grief: The Transformation of Uzhhorod

Today, Uzhhorod looks rather calm and peaceful on the surface - as if it’s concealing the pain and trauma deep inside. The city now has many new apartments being built as the population nearly doubled since the start of the war. It almost looks like a growing little city in parts while the decay and poverty are clearly visible in other areas.

It’s only when you visit the cemetery of local men who were buried in fresh graves or when you gaze at rows of portrait photos of deceased soldiers lining up on a wall on a hill next to a beautiful chapel that you begin to feel the desperate grieving felt by so many families and the very fresh and raw wound of this war. How many of these men are fathers of children and how many are beloved sons who are barely old enough to leave home….?

We also couldn't help but notice the dates of births and deaths displayed on their photos. One of the photos stood out to me - a beautiful smile of one young man who was born in September 2000 - just one year older than my own son who is still studying.

The official age to go into the army is 25 but the reality is that some volunteered to go at 18, said a passing woman, who was also visiting the cemetery.

I struggled to process the helpless feeling because I felt like the world had forgotten the urgency to stop armed conflicts springing up seemingly everywhere. We’ve forgotten to be fully committed to finding an alternative to division and violence. Why is it that grown-up adults in the world can still let it be ok for the wars to continue? Why are we arguing but not making things happen to end the war? Have we really done everything we can to protect innocent children?

Hope for the Future: Supporting Ukraine’s Children

Accompanied by those four women of Uzhhorod, we then visited two of the most under-resourced shelters they have been supporting. They explained that some of the children there are orphans from the east, and some are there because their parents are unable to care for them.

Today those shelters have proper and comfortable beds, warm and clean blankets, reliable water access and washing machines that they didn’t have before. Our Worthy Cause partner, ChildAid, that had arranged this trip for me, was also bringing many donated computers and phones from supporters in the UK. Communication devices, they say, were most in need right now.

The children and teens at the shelter were excited by our visit. Initially a little shy, they quickly became comfortable and friendly with us as they knew we were friends of the women who have been supporting them and visiting regularly. They wanted hugs. They wanted to give us many handmade gifts.

They were also amazed to hear that the Origami paper cranes I brought with me were folded by people from many different countries who were all thinking of them and praying for the return of peace and safety.

It’s sometimes simple acts like this (please read the separate article about 1,000 cranes) that can help us feel more connected with each other. So, let me thank you for the part you’ve played in ‘connecting the dots’.

And let me also thank B1G1 Members who have supported our Ukraine projects over the last few years. Some of the contributions have provided winter protection and nutrition to many vulnerable children and mothers in different circumstances. (You can help more too via these projects).

It’s still early October - not even the start of real winter yet. But it was already starting to get cold, especially at night. I could feel the importance of warm clothing on much colder days to protect these children. They say the power supply can be cut at times without notice due to the diversion of electricity for damages caused by bombing in other parts of the country. Staying warm in those times can be life-saving.

The Power of Collective Support

The support we had sent was limited in size but I could see how every help counts, especially when more people and businesses take small actions to help in times of difficulties experienced by others.

We also have a project that helps develop the skills of youths in Ukraine, so please do check it out here. Projects like this can be more expensive but it can help young people find opportunities to become independent regardless of their extremely disadvantaged background where they do not have parents that can allow them to continue learning.

Meeting some of these teens who are going through further education programs for skills development and listening to their stories and dreams made me realize how much more we can do together by supporting young people to become great leaders who can contribute positively to communities.

During this trip, we also had the chance to visit one family who has chosen to foster many children as their own. Need for more foster families is growing. Orphanages, while very much needed, are not the ideal permanent solution. And foster care can be necessary for some children even if they have living parents. Alcohol and mental issues such as depression and post-stress trauma are extremely common here. And not all the children have relatives who can care for them.

Impressed and inspired by this family’s decision to foster many children, we asked the mother, “What do you think we can do when we feel overwhelmed that so many people and children need help?”

“Just help a few. If you can really help one or two children, that’s enough. You don’t need to try to do big things and help so many. Helping one or two and showing real love is enough,” replied the mother. “Just help a few.”

The Giving Spirit in the Most Unexpected Places

We also visited a shelter (an old house with a small garden and under-resourced kitchen) where six refugee families shared a roof over their heads. Some of them escaped the eastern region of Donbas at the start of the war. A lady with her own aging mother told me that she only came here just a few weeks ago due to recent bombings in her hometown.

Here, everyone shares resources without regulations that guide them. If there is any space available, they let others come in. They have one thing in common. No one knows when they can return home and if they would ever have a ‘normal’ life back. And yet, they wanted to offer us hot tea.

I reflected on the lives many of us live today - including my own. We know that wars, extreme poverty and homelessness still exist in the world today. I have my own challenges but they are nothing at all compared to what people in Ukraine are going through. It’s so easy to forget the gift of being able to live a simple life with our loved ones.

At the end of the extremely packed day, feeling rather overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted, we gathered together with the four brave women around a round table at a beautiful wine bar in town which is run by another local woman. Even during the war, people here choose to show amazing hospitality to visitors. They treat us as special guests.

They told me how much they appreciated our visit and how much it meant to them that we haven’t forgotten.

They then talked about their ideas to start offering skills-development training to teens using their businesses as the platforms. Because they saw that those adolescents would soon need to find their own ways forward. They cannot stay in children’s shelters forever. They know that the repercussions of this war will continue for a very long time. The young people need trauma care and skills development after their needs for food and shelter are at least partly taken care of.

The owner of the wine bar, another beautiful woman, overheard our conversation and shared with us that the two young men who were standing at the counter away from us, both dressed well, were actually from the Donbas area. “They came here,” she said, “after escaping their hometowns”. She decided to give them training and jobs so they could earn income to create their own lives here.

A Call to Action: Real Success Lies in Uplifting Others

Businesses can become a real force for good. We’ve always known this. But I think we have so much more to learn from these amazing women. We need more leaders like them in our world today.

I now can truly see that the real beauty of people and real magic of businesses come from the guiding light within. And that makes me contemplate the real meaning of success. There is so much more to work and life than to win today or to financially prosper. Real success is measured by what we can offer to uplift lives.

Thank you for discovering and reading this article. If you want to share encouraging words with the women, men and children who were mentioned in this article, please let me know. And I hope you will join us to make your business a force for good in the world as well.

I also want to express my sincere gratitude to Martin Wilcox from ChildAid who arranged for me to visit Ukraine, to a British philanthropist, David Burnet who is helping those women do what they do, and to everyone in Ukraine who opened their doors and hearts to us.

I hope to be updating you again in the near future. Let’s all keep doing what we can (and must do) to make our world a safe, peaceful and prosperous place for all children. ✨🌷