UMass Spotlights Lab Director Carpenter’s Trip to Ukraine Border

The Director of the Human Security Lab, Dr. Charli Carpenter, was spotlighted in UMass Amherst’s latest news bulletin after returning from Poland, where she flew over Spring Break to report on and join in the refugee relief effort on the Poland-Ukraine border.

Upon arriving in Poland, Carpenter was struck by the chaos and disorganization of the relief effort and alarmed by the noticeable lack of NGOs that typically respond to and help coordinate crises of this scale. In an essay for World Politics Review, Carpenter noted that “I did not even see an office for UNHCR—the United Nations Refugee Agency—in the Warsaw train station.”

Carpenter was on the ground working to create relief systems from scratch. During her week in Poland, she took to Twitter to post advice for foreign volunteers, raise donations for supplies, and publish her ideas on how to better coordinate a response to the crisis. For foreign volunteers, Carpenter strongly advised that before landing in Poland, one must build a network on the border, travel in teams that ideally include women and Ukrainian speakers, and plan how they will add value to the crisis response. Carpenter observed that even the ability to rent vans and drive with a license could be of help given the dearth of governmental response, but psychosocial training, grant-writing, publicity, web design, and fundraising skills are also enormously helpful to local NGOs.

Carpenter followed her own advice and prepared for her trip by making contacts in Poland and asking volunteers on the ground what they needed. She used this information to amass medicine, food, and gear and rent a van to shuttle these supplies to groups on the border. When her van was empty, she offered rides to refugees seeking safe passage. Carpenter recalls that at one site she “showed up with a 9-person van to offer a lift” and “a crush of people rushed forward, desperate for a ride.”

Donations were fundraised from friends, family, and followers on Twitter and used to rent vans and purchase supplies. So far, Carpenter’s Gofundme has raised $8,655 for the relief effort. Of this amount, $1,000 went towards the van rental and the rest will be donated to grassroots charities and organizations in Poland. But Carpenter also inspired others to join her and raise their own funds, such as Meredith Pearson, a Providence RI NGO workers who jumped on a plane after seeing Carpenter’s tweet.

While in Poland, Carpenter used her observations and expertise to propose solutions and create systems to improve coordination of the relief effort, and has been writing about those at her biweekly World Politics Review column. The School of Behavioral Sciences at UMass-Amherst will also host a webinar in the next weeks where Professor Carpenter will speak about her trip. To stay up-to-date on Dr. Carpenter’s experiences and observations about this crisis, you can follow her on Twitter at @charlicarpenter.