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When Russia invaded her native Ukraine, Zamna founder Ira Arila Key – a UK-based tech entrepreneur – set up a fundraising page to directly support people in Ukraine. Ki’s father (aged 70) and stepmother (aged 82) are both in Ukraine, as are her stepsister and children. Chi then temporarily retired from her day job (developing a blockchain system for airlines and travel authorities to securely share and verify).
The next few weeks were a blur.
But while her fundraiser raised a lot of money, Khie realized there was no competent NGO to distribute supplies on the ground in the middle of a fast-moving war zone. She realized that the only way to enter Ukraine is with a group that can speak at least 3 languages: Ukrainian, Polish and Russian (Khi speaks all three). “There was a huge disconnect between Western aid efforts and their ability to get aid across borders,” she said.
This led her to create Susefaba Aid, a non-governmental organization.
She jumped in and ‘got her hands dirty’ making dozens of video calls with local drivers in Ukraine to deliver goods.
She joined forces with Ukrainian volunteers in London, initially building an all-multilingual team of 10 people.
Seven months later, she now has a team of 200+ people spread globally.
Fortunately, her role at Zamna meant she could call several airline CEOs to talk about shipping offers to countries bordering Ukraine through Fear Airlines. Some even rerouted planes after a KI call.
In addition to distributing aid, she also built a hyper-local information network on the ground, building a communication network within her country and gathering information from local sources using messaging platforms such as SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp and sometimes Facebook Messenger.
Since then, Kehi has tapped individuals in venture capital and private equity to back Sunflower.
“Every penny we raise goes directly to the families we’ve helped through the network. The call to action is you are on venture capital and you can spare some resources, please contact us because we have raised money alone for six months and every penny goes to help people on the ground. We are all volunteers at Sunflower.
We are on a shoestring budget and our operating budget never touches our grant budget. We are talking about pure donation. “We don’t have enough aid money to help those who need it most in war zones,” she said.
“A lot of very senior partners and VCs who donated just sent me the reports. We do not want any advertising or our name to be seen in light. Many of them are motivated by the need for high-fidelity, verified recipients, because donating to large organizations does not give you sunflowers, which are very specific case reports, pictures, videos, people’s reactions. “We’ve got over 250,000 people we’ve helped now, all of them are registered and you can really see the impact you’re making,” she told me over the phone.
And Sunflower is definitely busy.
For Founders Forum 2022, Ira helped coordinate a hologram appearance of President Zelensky, and raised an incredible $1 million at this year’s event.
It has now matched £2.25 million with certified NGOs in Ukraine. Here are some examples of how it has helped to build friendships.
– Sunflower relief is requested to find money and logistics to buy food/supplies for 3,500 displaced refugees in Ukraine who are currently living in schools and kindergartens – The call for help comes from the city council in Kaminets-Podilskyi, Ukraine.
Thanks to colleagues Serhii Nizhinskii, Asociatia pastel, IsraAID Germany e. Vc/o ZWST, and the Civic Radauti Association and supplier Riso Vingola, Italy, were able to collect 27 pallets, 5 tons of goods in total, all paid for, using donations from the Asil organization.
– Glib Lazorenko (surgeon) – asked for help to get medical equipment for injured people. Critical medical assistance was provided to Ukrainian civilians and soldiers who were seriously injured at the State Scientific Institute “Scientific and Practical Center of Preventive and Clinical Medicine” in Kyiv.
– Donate a supply of sunflowers to Baby Lifeline, Andrea Fraser from Justice.org from Edinburgh, NHS Scotland, a UK-based charity (the “Sender”), to Ukraine Hospital in Kharkiv and Mechnikov Regional Clinical Hospital.
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