On Tuesday, January 24, 2023, I made my way back to the Ukrainian border. This time I was traveling alone, so I took a little more time for the drive. This proved necessary as crossing the Carpathians took more time. In mid-December I received a call asking when I would be traveling to Ukraine to bring help. I answered, “Not… Read more →
Category: Ukraine
Hannu and Harri’s Trip to Romania (4-7 Nov 2022)
Early Friday morning, November 4th, 2022, I met my wife Anita and Hannu Ylitalo in Budapest. After breakfast we drove to Romania in a van from HELP and HOPE. We arrived in Satu Mare just before noon. The former president of the Jewish community, Decsei Nicolae, welcomed us with his team in front of one of the city center hotels.… Read more →
Hanukkah-Workshop in Vienna
At the end of October 2022, Leena Hakala and Anne Laine came to Vienna for a Hanukkah workshop. These two hardworking volunteers put together sixty attractive gift bags for the Jewish community of Rădăuți in eastern Romania. We also bought groceries for Ukraine. Leena and Anne report on their workshop experiences below: “When we first planned the Hanukkah gift packs… Read more →
Help for Ukraine via Oradea
At the beginning of September, I managed to combine a business trip with an aid transport to Oradea. Thanks to the HELP and HOPE team and a group of friends, we received a significant amount of clothes and shoes. Groceries such as flour, macaroni, sugar, coffee, tea, oil and chocolate were bought in a Viennese wholesale shop. Of course, hygiene… Read more →
Our Aid Arrives.
To keep it that way, we need a new transporter with which we can continue to bring donations and relief supplies to Ukraine. The war is not over yet, many already lost their lives and many had to flee. The cold winter, the dysfunctional energy infrastructure and poor supply put people in need. They urgently need warm clothes, sleeping bags,… Read more →
Anne and Anita in Oradea – Help for People to People
Anne Ylitalo and Anita Pylvänäinen-Kröger brought the next busload of relief supplies to the organization People to People in Oradea. We learned from Nicu Gal how much the field of activity of his organization p2p has been expanded through the work for people who have fled from the Ukraine and how urgently aid supplies are now constantly needed. Anne and… Read more →
Hannu and Harri in Siret – Help for the Ukraine
It was still dark on Thursday, May, 5th at 4:00 am when I started the car and began my journey to the Ukrainian border to bring relief supplies there. I had collected the things to take with me a few days before the trip and stored them at HILFE und HOFFNUNG’s warehouse. A nursing home donated many walking frames and… Read more →
Relief Supplies for Oradea
For many years, HILFE und HOFFNUNG has been supporting the Romanian children’s charity people2people (www.people2people.ro) in Oradea (formerly Großwardein, also called the “Gateway to Transylvania” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradea). This city is 500 km from Vienna and 250 km from Budapest, on the Romanian border with Hungary. The head of people2people Nicu Gal recently picked up the relief supplies himself in Vienna.… Read more →
The War in Ukraine and My Journey
The news about the war in Ukraine kept me very busy from day one. I quickly knew that I couldn’t sit by and watch, I had to do something. I contacted our acquaintance Tanja Berezhnaya in Chernivtsi – a city in western Ukraine, the capital of Bukovina. Tanja has been running the organization “New Family” in Chernivtsi for many years… Read more →