Date: 10/03/22
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

Watching the news at the moment is very difficult. The content is all tremendously bad news and some of it is very frightening. It is natural for us to feel very pessimistic about events in Ukraine and also about the pressures that we face at home with huge price rises for electricity, gas and fuel, rising prices in shops and the tax increases in April.

In spite of that, this week has reminded me of the power of good over evil. The response from our school communities to support humanitarian aid to Ukraine has been nothing short of magnificent and we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the donations received. In fact we are so overwhelmed, as are many of the aid agencies, that we are now pausing the collection of donated items and focusing on getting them transported to the people who really need them.

Your generosity is even more amazing because the price increases I mentioned earlier mean that everyone has less to spend, so it is a huge ask to request donations at this time.

While there have been no shortage of wars and conflicts since the end of World War 2, the invasion of Ukraine seems to have captured attention to a much greater extent than any other recent conflict. I think that this is partly because armed conflict in Europe has not been seen on this scale since 1945, but it also because technology such as social media gives us access to so much more information on what is really happening. I think that many people are also shocked by Putin’s aggression with the type of invasion not seen since World War 2, solely about gaining territory and power at the expense of innocent victims.

When faced with the evils of this war on a daily basis, it is easy to be very pessimistic about the future. However, the response of our communities to the crisis has been stunning and reminded me that there is far more good in the world than evil. This is also reinforced by the way that ordinary people in the neighbouring countries, particularly Poland but not least Moldova which is probably Europe’s poorest country, have welcomed Ukrainian refugees with open arms.

Since the invasion, I’ve seen how much our children care about people they’ve never met and how much they want to do what they can to help. When we see this generosity of spirit and the support of our communities for the appeal, it acts as a reminder that hope will prevail and good will always overcome evil in the end.