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TU/e students support people of Ukraine with Tikkies from friends

On Wednesday of last week, master’s student Robert Lintzen still expected that he would soon go on with his life in Ukraine, but when the county where his girlfriend lives was invaded by the Russian army the following day, the situation changed dramatically. He decided to set up a support group with some of his fellow students to help the people of Ukraine financially and to offer Ukrainians in Eindhoven support with visible signals.

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photo Norbine Schalij

When the brothers Robert and Sander Lintzen and Casper van der Schaft met with acquaintances from the ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management) network in Hubble on Thursday evening, they felt dispirited and anxious. Robert had received his working permit for Ukraine the previous day. “That won’t do me much good now. I’m doing my graduate internship at a company in Kyiv, but I work from Eindhoven.I don't know how to adjust that now. My company supervisor is in a bomb shelter.” Girlfriend Anastasiia managed to get to an airport in Poland with some luck and much help from student friends and flew to Eindhoven from there.

Solidarity

All three students visited Ukraine several times. “I walked around in Kyiv just a month ago,” Robert says, “and all the restaurants were still open then. And now this.” Sander explains what was decided in Hubble: “We want to express solidarity and sympathy to the people of Ukraine, and to all the people and students who are affected by this. That is why we asked all the associations and parties with member spaces to display the Ukrainian flag in TU/e’s various social spaces for as long as this conflict lasts.” The flags have been ordered and are expected to arrive on Monday. Hubble, Cosmos and the bar of Intermate (the Internaat) have already responded positively.

Lighting

The students also asked the Executive Board and TU/e community manager Erik de Jong whether it would be possible to hoist the Ukrainian flag next to the pond in front of the Atlas building. This will happen on Friday. The idea to light to chimney and the letters of the TU/e logo on Vertigo in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag also comes from the workgroup. De Jong will investigate the possibilities as far as the logo is concerned, but says that the lighting technology on the chimney has been removed by now.

In Kharkiv: ‘Groceries that can be handed out to people thanks to donations of €45 or 1760 Ukrainian hryvnias.' Photo | private collection Lintzen
Handing out

The money comes in faster. The students send social media messages to their own networks asking people for donations. “We’ve already raised more than 1100 euros. The money will be transferred to Anastasiia’s existing account in Ukraine so that it can be transferred quickly and without transaction costs to the people who need it badly,” Robert says. “We’ve already transferred money to a number of students who got injured. And we’ve donated to a small hospital in the east, to a mother we know who helps others, to students in Kyiv who hand out medicines, and to a friend of ours who buys baby food and hands it out to people.”

Sander says that the sums involved are small. “We want to increase our requests to our contacts via social media for a Tikkie with an amount of their own choice. We don’t know at this point whether we will also collect goods. We take it day by day and see what we can do.”

They only achieve small things, Casper realizes. “This way, I want to justify to myself my decision to continue to work on my thesis during the day. During the evening, this is what I do to help the people in Ukraine. It’s a surreal situation when you think about it. No one knows what Putin’s end goal is.”

Do you also want to share your ideas on how to help out in Ukraine? Don’t hesitate to send Robert an email.

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