Meet Oliver,

Oliver Meyer

[ region ]

Chernihiv

28 / 10 / 2024

Co-founder of St. Gallen Helps Ukraine students association

[ topic ] Recovery and Reconstruction

Chernihiv was one of the first Ukrainian cities to suffer significant destruction due to full-scale Russian military aggression. Thus, a big part of the city's public infrastructure was destroyed, including 30% of the trolleybus network. The city's existing public transport is not enough to serve the citizens and the large number of internally displaced persons. Many people have been returning to this north-eastern city with a population of around 290,000 residents before 2022, which also hosts many displaced people from frontline communities.

The Swiss city of St. Gallen with a population of around 76,000 people donated 11 public buses to Chernihiv in 2024. This project was initiated by the association St. Gallen Helps Ukraine, founded by Swiss and Ukrainian students. The Association Ukraine Switzerland Bern and the Swiss-Ukrainian DECIDE project supported its implementation, while the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine funded the delivery.

I think that all of us Europeans are one big family. We should be there for each other if another nation needs any help.

All of us saw how the citizens of Ukraine suffered and we wanted to help them. In 2022, ten Ukrainian and Swiss students of the University of St. Gallen established an association St. Gallen Helps Ukraine on a voluntary basis. We started with delivering humanitarian aid, such as medicine, food, electronics, to Ukraine.

Together with another co-founder of our association, Emilia, we came to Kyiv in 2023 to figure out how best to continue supporting people in Ukraine. It impressed us a lot – to see some atrocities of Russian occupation, but also to hear the words of faith, hope and determination from Ukrainians, to see how they stand up for their right for sovereignty, freedom and democracy.

All Swiss and Ukrainian students of our association are proud and happy with the result. But we are just getting started

The issue which was raised several times during my first trip to Ukraine was the lack of public transport. We came back to Switzerland with the idea of delivering public buses. St. Gallen offered to hand over 11 used public buses. Of course, no one of us had experience transferring vehicles abroad. It took a lot of time and effort. But we were not alone – other civil society organizations in Ukraine and Switzerland, and the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine helped a lot.

In September 2024, the buses were delivered to the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. I came to Ukraine for the second time for the hand-over ceremony. It is amazing to imagine how many people would be able to use these buses. All Swiss and Ukrainian students of our association are proud and happy with the result. But we are just getting started – we will try to find all the Swiss buses that could be donated and ideally this will result in many more fleets of Swiss buses that will be driving on Ukrainian streets.

DECIDE

The vehicles are in excellent condition, and the transport company of the city of St. Gallen also transfers all available bus spare parts.

after

24 feb 2022

What else is Switzerland doing for Ukraine?

Switzerland has been assisting those impacted through various means – from humanitarian aid, humanitarian demining and financial support to granting protection status S to individuals from Ukraine seeking refuge. By 15 February 2024, the Swiss federal government had spent a total of around 3 billion Swiss francs to support Ukrainian refugees in Switzerland and people in Ukraine.

In 2022, Switzerland organised the first Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano and launched the political process to help Ukraine rebuild. The Summit on Peace in Ukraine, held in Switzerland in 2024, set up a path towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. In the longer term, the Federal Council aims to allocate 1.5 billion Swiss francs to support Ukraine's recovery efforts by 2028.

organic farming

energy efficiency

search for missing persons

food security

culture

tourism

diplomacy

peace process

health

psychosocial support

protection

education