We drove three donated ambulances full of medical aid to Ukraine in 2022
Mighty Convoy, a British non-profit organisation that delivers ambulances and medical aid to Ukraine, has joined forces with two other charities to more effectively get aid to the sick and injured.
I travelled with Mighty Convoy a few years ago as it delivered three ambulances filled with emergency medical kit to the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine (CMAU) in the western city of Lviv.
With aid needed “now more than ever”, that partnership has been expanded to include the International Christian Medical and Dental Association (ICMDA) under a new campaign called Convoy of Hope, launched at the Palace of Westminster last week.
So far, Mighty Convoy has raised £330,000 to take 12 convoys to Ukraine, delivering 49 vehicles (38 ambulances, nine pick-up trucks and two refrigerated lorries), 35 tonnes of aid and 30,000 meal packs.
The ICMDA and CMAU have, meanwhile, delivered and distributed medical equipment worth £10 million, including 120,000 pallets from the Nightingale hospitals created for the NHS at the height of the Covid pandemic.
“Nearly all of the Mighty Convoy ambulances are still in action,” founder Simon Brake told us last week. “And when Ukrainians tell us directly about the lives they’ve saved, we know we have to continue.”
His convoys operate primarily on a pay-to-drive model. Around £7000 is enough to buy and take one ambulance, which will be filled with donated medical supplies and typically is driven by those who raised the money.
Individuals, clubs and community groups are among those who have donated and made the trip (including one from Autocar’s publisher, Haymarket).
“We’ve built a community of like-minded people,” said Brake. If you like road trips, this is one of the most important and, glib though this might sound, enjoyable ones you will make.
Brake has been supported by Specialist Vehicle Solutions of Dudley in finding and servicing ambulances for the journey – ones at the right price and that will be reliable enough.
But there’s also a need for vans, minibuses and pick-ups, which, being four-wheel drive and much more rugged, can travel further towards the front lines than road-biased ambulances.
But while Brake has a solid and trusted source for ambulances, “it’s harder to find reliable pick-ups”, he told us. “At the moment, we’re buying them at auction, and it’s very much pot luck what we get. I want to appeal to companies operating large fleets of vehicles like pick-ups.”
Brake would take donated vehicles, but they need to be reliable enough to make the journey and still have a useful active life when they arrive. By the time many companies are ready to dispose of pick-ups for nothing, they can be beyond that.
“We want access to buy [vehicles] directly from fleet operators,” said Brake. “We know they will be better maintained.”
If you are or know one of these operators, you can follow the link below, or email me directly and I will pass on your details to Brake.
Uliana Kovalyshyn, project manager for the CMAU, travelled to London from Lviv last week. “Support like this has become priceless for us,” she said, noting that 173 medical facilities have been destroyed and 1218 damaged since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago.
In a video recorded near the front lines in one of Mighty Convoy’s donated ambulances, combat medics allege that the Russian military targets medics and their vehicles. “One medic is worth 10 soldiers: that is their calculation,” one said.
Lieutenant Mykhaylo Korchynskyy, a lawyer who joined the Ukrainian military in 2022, going on to lead platoons in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, and is now an officer at the Main Directorate of Military Justice, was also in London last week.
“Almost every soldier in my platoon was injured,” he said. “Those who survived did so due to fast access to the right equipment. We depend on our global allies for support.
“I have seen many horrible things that Russians did – things I never expected to see in Europe in the 21st century,” he continued.
Source: Autocar
