It is a calling and way of life: Olena Herasymeniuk

Olena is a volunteer with the Ukrainian Red Cross emergency response team in the Kherson region. She joined the team in 2017. She started as a volunteer, taking on whatever tasks the team needed help with.

Olena learned about the emergency response team through friends. She had long wanted to help people, but did not know how she could be useful. An invitation to join a duty shift was the moment when everything fell into place. “I realised how I could help and be useful to society,” she says.

Today, Olena is an ambulance driver and is responsible for vehicle equipment and radio communications. She takes part in evacuations, transports people with limited mobility, serves on duty shifts and supports other emergency response operations.

Over the years of volunteering, she has taken part in many deployments and witnessed many different stories. But one has stayed with her in particular.

The team helped transport an elderly woman from a territory not under government control to reunite her with her daughter and granddaughter. They had not seen each other for four years.

“You cannot fake emotions like that. When you see them reunite, you realise how important it is for a family to be together.”

Olena does not hide the fact that the work can be frightening. But fear does not stop those who know why they are responding to a call. For her, volunteering is more than something she does in her free time. “It is a calling and a way of life,” Olena says.

And to those considering becoming volunteers, Olena has a simple message: if you want to help and be useful, do not hesitate to step forward. Because every person you help save is someone’s life, someone’s family, someone’s whole world.