Volunteer Project Ideas
There are many areas that need help, but here's a few ideas of things that will have high impact. Some are more immediate term, and some are longer term. If you are interesting in collaborating or just discussing some of these, please reach out!
Immigration
Currently, Ukrainians are flying to the Mexico border to interview into the USA via humanitarian parole exemption. I believe we also have the ability to sponsor a tourist visa as well. This is one area where we can definitely address, connecting Ukrainians with immigration lawyers and/or even assisting with the journey into the USA.
Housing
While there are many welcoming hosts that can offer temporary housing, we need a way to provide safe homes for mothers with children that is a good match for both the host and the Ukrainians. Currently, there are some platforms, but the verification process could use a lot more work to provide the safety that everyone needs.
Host Blacklist
on a slight tangent to this idea, there have been reports of hosts making un-welcomed advances towards female guests. This behavior is extremely unacceptable, and we should strive to publicly stop this type of behavior, via blacklisting or reporting to law enforcement in more extreme scenarios.
Recruiting
Even after escaping Kharkiv or Mariupol, many people still need to find new employment to adjust to their new place. Any employment will be highly welcomed, and if we can create specialized platforms for this, that would be even better.
Anti-Trafficking Monitoring
There's always the threat of human trafficking especially in a case like this where it's mostly mothers and children. Initially, children were crossing the border by themselves. There are much better controls now to prevent trafficking, but we could always do more, as well as maybe try to trace the people who were trafficked
Supply Chain Database
Currently we have people traveling all around, but there is not centralized database that can match supply with delivery/demand. We have many people flying from USA to Europe, but often with empty luggages. Anything we can do to increase the efficiency would be highly welcomed.
Coding Academy
We need to think about the future, and tech is the future. It is more than likely that Ukraine will survive this conflict, and we need to rebuild.
Teaching
We need to quickly ramp up people for employment, so any skills that can be quickly taught will be highly desirable. Language courses would be fairly useful here
Job Help
In addition to education, we could also offer job prep help. Some ideas would be:
Resume review
Interview practice
Providing paid internships
Some are students still in Ukraine that could use the real-world experience
Connecting with recruiters
This is by no means a comprehensive list. If you have other ideas, let's collaborate!