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SPO was founded in 2003 out of our own vision on humanitarian help. We have chosen a project based approach. The projects should be as short and concrete as possible. We have a small regular team and some volunteers living all over The Netherlands which we call if we need them for a project.
We don’t indiscriminately collect second hand goods all year long. Because transportion costs to Ukraine are so high, we focus on technical equipment needed by the impoverished institutions for the general public like schools and hospitals and homes for the elderly. We exclude all elite institutions serving only one privileged group or another, because they can manage without humanitarian help.
Public institutions in Ukraine typically have to operate with technical equipment dating from the Soviet era. Equipment which must be repaired all the time since there is no money to replace them. Eventually, repair becomes impossible and institutions have to do without. Essentially, they revert to pre-modern times. For example, we´ve seen hospitals without ambulances, incubators or x-ray equipment. For the other institutions, it is the same story. Generally, the staff is well educated and highly motivated, but they sorely miss the material means to make the most of that.
The pictures on our pages were taken in 2003, during an exploratory trip. The institutions we visited where located in small cities, but all had a regional function. That is why these institutions were relatively well equiped. Though the equipment looks like the ones in our museums, at least it was there. Unfortunally, institutions without regional status are worse off.
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