Ukrainians pitch in to help vulnerable amid coronavirus crisis

Amid the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide lockdown, many Ukrainians are staying positive and try to help one another.

For that, some have already set up nonprofits to raise money and deliver food to the elderly, the segment of the population most vulnerable to COVID-19. Meanwhile, landlords are lifting or reducing rent for struggling businesses and other people are helping medics to go to work for free, despite the risk of getting infected.

Medical journalist Iryna Zaslavets chose to drive a medical professional to work. She considers it a normal thing to do because, she says, she believes in people.

“People are much better than we think,” Zaslavets said, “and it’s normal to help.”

Volunteer groups on social media

On March 19, Zaslavets took part in a grassroots movement hashtagged on social media as #pidvezimedikanarobotu (drive a medic to work), an initiative to bring medical personnel to their hospitals for free.

Social media groups like this one, which discuss ideas for how to help people, can be found on Telegram, but people in each major city in Ukraine have developed their own chats on social media – in Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Lviv and Mykolayiv.

Zaslavets offered a medic a ride to the hospital after she found the initiative on a Viber group. Thanks to a Google Doc shared on the chat, she met with Tanya, a neonatologist working in central Kyiv.

The next morning, Tanya was in Zaslavets’ car, still puzzled by the idea and asking several times if it was for free and if  Zaslavets was not afraid of getting infected.

“Well, of course, we didn’t hug,” she said, “but I’m a journalist, I meet a lot of people every day.”

She told the Kyiv Post that money is not the point. She had already scheduled a trip for the next morning, and said she would continue to do it regularly until the end of the quarantine — and maybe even after.

On March 19, Ukraine’s Health Ministry called for “all state and commercial companies in the country” as well as “passenger carriers and local authorities” to help medical personnel to get to hospitals to stop the spread of COVID-19. Taxi companies such as Uber stepped in on March 20 , saying they would provide 10,000 trips in total in Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Vinnytsia.

Still, Zaslavets is ready to continue her daily trips if transportation is not provided.

She’s not the only one, and the initiatives are multiplying to help the most vulnerable part of society against the virus, the elderly.

Collecting money for the elderly

The foundation Zhytteliub (a person enjoying life), founded in 2013 by Garik Korogodsky, the co-owner of Kyiv mall DreamTown, and Tina Mykhaylovska, co-founder and head of the foundation, used to have a flagship project called Obed Bez Bied (lunch without struggle), aimed at helping elderly people in Kyiv. Anyone could have access to help from the foundation.  That is still the case today.

The project consisted of distributing free hot dinners to elderly people with the help of 100 restaurants and the taxi company Uklon. But “it was much more than just food,” Zhytteliub PR manager Christina Spirina told the Kyiv Post on March 19, highlighting the socialization aspect of the project.

Zhytteliub used to distribute 30,000 hot meals per month, but the foundation had to halt outdoor activities due to the quarantine. Instead of giving away free food at its regular spots, it switched to raising money for groceries delivered to homes.

When Zhytteliub switched activities, its fundraising reached up to $7,000 in one day, and the organization reached over $10,000 the next morning.

“The donations went through the roof,” Spirina said.

The foundation recently opened another platform to raise funds for the elderly, called “Superonuki” (“Super-grandchildren” in Ukrainian). The money collected through this project helps them when they “run out of money to rent an apartment,” or when they need food or medication. Donations can range from Hr 150 ($5) for “two or three weeks of groceries” to as much as Hr 3,000 ($100) to help older people rent a room in Kyiv.

On March 16, Zhytteliub also published special leaflets on its website to be printed out and hung on buildings to offer senior neighbors help with a grocery run, so they can stay at home and avoid infection.

Rental payments for shops, apartments

Due to the extensive restrictions taking effect on March 18 to prevent the spread of coronavirus, shopping malls had to close. After they closed, DreamTown co-owner Garik Korogodsky asked businesses owners in his mall to get a “force majeure” certificate to lift their rent, he wrote on Facebook on March 19.

With this certificate, DreamTown’s owners can lift the rent during the quarantine — but only after speaking with banks and commercial institutions providing water, electricity or security services. The certificate of force majeure is issued by Ukraine’s chamber of commerce.

DreamTown CEO Roman Yemets added that they were ready to discuss lifting rents, but it could be a difficult process.

“It will be long and complex,” he said to Kyiv Post on the same day.

On March 18, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the law “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine aimed at Preventing the Occurrence and Spread of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19),” promulgating, among other things, the quarantine as a force majeure situation, meaning that a  person won’t be punished for not being able to pay taxes during the quarantine.

The measure is aimed at easing rents to help small businesses and workers.

Yemets explained that the force majeure would help the mall be more flexible in its payments with banks and commercial institutions.

“If it is official that businesses don’t pay their rent to us, then we can find a compromise with banks and commercial institutions to delay payments,” he said.

Entrepreneur and restaurateur Artem Veselov told the Kyiv Post on March 19 that it depends on the clause of the contract.

“I made an agreement that includes a clause which provides for such force majeure,” he said, “ and in case you have such paragraph in the rent agreement, your rent can be lifted.”

He added that the civil code provides for the clause. “It’s actually in your best interest, and ideally should be in every agreement,” he said.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case for every small business. Anton Waschuk, who founded and owns the counter restaurant Os Los in central Kyiv, said he still pays rent and has not been notified by his landlords “that they will waive their claim to collect rent for this period,” he told the Kyiv Post on March 19.

He is in a dire situation. “Having to pay 100% rent with 0% incoming income is bad news,” he said.

Waschuk has no clear strategy to handle the situation. “No strategy, just bear the losses,” he said.

The situation with residential rent is not clear either.

Oleksander Nosenko, a landlord, told the Kyiv Post on March 19 that private tenants could have access to a discount from 30% to 40% between March 16 and April 3, but this is not official and it depends on the agreement between the tenant and the owner of the flat.

But “it could be a relief for people whose wages are (now) too low for their apartments,” he said, adding that landlords were conscious of their tenant’s struggle.

Yemets echoed this statement, saying the economic consequences would be felt long after the two weeks of quarantine

“The quarantine will be hard,” he said. “We’re not thinking month by month now, but rather week by week.”

However, Zaslavets was confident in Ukrainians’ ability to join together in a time of crisis.

“We showed that we can come together and help each other when the war began,” she said. “This is not that different, and we will act the same.”