'Any way I can raise awareness, I’ll do it': Peterborough's Ukrainian aid organiser makes increasing awareness top priority

Ever since Russia launched its ‘special operation’ in February, St Olga's Ukrainian Church in Peterborough has stood at the forefront of the region’s volunteer response.

The Catholic Byzantine Church, in Woodston, has been used as a base of operations by volunteers like Alla Irodenko, sending much-needed aid to the beleaguered, yet resolute, people of Ukraine.

Earlier this year, during the initial months of the conflict, Alla, and her fellow volunteers, were sending a lorry full of essential supplies to Ukraine on a near weekly basis. Sadly, this is no longer the case.

“We’re still collecting donations,” says Alla, “but it’s getting quieter now.”

The 33-year-old explained to the Peterborough Telegraph how the cost of living crisis is affecting the general public’s view of the war in Ukraine:

“[British] people now, they’re trying to focus on surviving themselves because of the prices going up: electric, gas, which is very understandable.”

“It’s all quietened down a lot to the point where the church is closed during the week - we pop in when we’re needed.”

Hampton resident Alla said transporting essential supplies in the way they did previously is no longer practical as filling a lorry up “takes a long time.”

Although this is undoubtedly a significant setback, Alla and her fellow volunteers are undeterred.

Their response has been to refocus their efforts. Increasing awareness is now, alongside fundraising, the chief aim of the team at St Olga's.

“Any way I can raise awareness - I’ll do it,” Alla says, determinedly.

To this end, she and her fellow volunteers are currently doing everything from running coffee mornings to setting up stalls at local events.

Plans are also in place for the festive period, with ‘A Ukrainian Christmas’ exhibition at the Peterborough Museum and an initiative to sell Ukrainian souvenirs beside Ferry Meadows’ ice rink already pencilled in.

‘Postcards from Ukraine’, a thought-provoking exhibition opening at Peterborough Cathedral on 21 October is one of Alla’s larger awareness raising projects. The exhibition displays “pictures of architectural structures before the war and during the war” provided by the Ukraine Institute in Kyiv.

The exhibition starts on 21 October and is due to run for four weeks.

The continued impact of the war

Healthcare assistant Alla has lived in the UK for more than 20 years.

When she isn’t volunteering, or being mum to her teenage daughter and eight-year-old son, she spends her time providing emergency healthcare cover to overstretched NHS venues across the country.

Earlier this month, the indefatigable mother-of-two helped set up Peterborough’s first Ukrainian radio show.

While its chief aim is to increase the sense of community spirit among Ukrainian newcomers and encourage more donations, Alla hopes it too will help “raise awareness of what war can do.”

The show is helmed by a refugee broadcaster who fled Ukraine just hours before war broke out.

While Alla is understandably keen to highlight the continued impact of the war in her homeland, she feels it’s important to underscore the effect war has on everyone.

”We have Remembrance Day coming up,” she says, “and [the radio station] is just to show people that, no matter where war is – whatever country it is – it’s devastating, changing the lives of millions of people.”

Despite all that is happening, Alla insists on returning to Ukraine at least twice a year.

She has done so every year and will continue to do so, no matter what. “My dentist is in Ukraine,” she says, laughing.

This stoic outlook is shared by many of her countrymen, including her own godfather. He lives in Burshtyn, a city in the west of Ukraine which is routinely shelled by Russian forces.

“He is nearly 80-years-old [and] he has to look after his wife who has stage 4 cancer. I have tried to bring him here but ‘no’.”

“He has lived there all his life,“ she says, “he will not leave.”Anyone looking to assist Alla or find out more about her initiatives can head to the Support for Ukraine in Peterborough Facebook group.

The Ukrainian radio show airs on PCR FM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 10am to 12pm.