The disabled Ukranians doing what the UN can’t (or won’t)

As a 23-year-old wheelchair user halfway through a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics, I didn’t expect to spend my past week working 16 hours a day to coordinate evacuations of people with disabilities from war-torn Ukraine. 

But when I opened social media last Saturday to see Ukrainian disability rights organization Fight for Right (FFR) begging for assistance with evacuating their community, I quickly got in touch to see how I could help. Within 24 hours, my small US-based disability organization, The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, was on board to do what we could.