Daria Rybak about volunteering in the “Find Your Own” project
Daria Rybak — Ukrainian theater and film actress, known for the main role in the series “100 thousand minutes together”. Since the beginning of the war, Daria left Kyiv, but she was looking for a way to help Ukraine – that’s how the actress joined the team of Kateryna Osadchai’s search project for the missing “Find Your Own”. Rybak spoke about her experience in volunteering and how she feels when she does good.
The desire to be useful since the beginning of the war
Currently, I am participating in several volunteer projects, in one of them I have been working almost since the beginning of the war: in the project “Find Your Own”. I started there as a volunteer who processed applications, and now I manage the girls who do it, and I am responsible for publishing all useful information on the project’s Telegram channel.
The fact that I left Kyiv in the first days of the war and ended up in the small town of Morshin was probably decisive. There were almost no volunteer activities that I could do, but I was looking for something that I could help with, just with a phone in my hands. “Find your own”, in which my acquaintance was volunteering at that time, aroused my strong interest, and I really wanted to join the project – and since mid-March, I have been a part of the search team for missing persons.
Volunteering is our new superpower
Trying to analyze my feelings, my thoughts, which I had when I first started volunteering, and which are now, I realized that volunteering is not just an obligation, it is a new superpower that almost all Ukrainians have discovered in themselves.
Don’t forget to take care of yourself and others
It seems to me that moments when one’s hands are down are the normal state of a Ukrainian. Many are familiar with the “emotional swing”: when one day you are a superhero, and then you wake up and realize that you have neither strength nor desire, and the only thing you can do is just take care of yourself.
On such days, it helps to simply take a break from news, activities and just take time for yourself – this is the simplest, but most effective.
Nothing is impossible
Belief in our victory (I am sure, it is very close) and our people are an incredible force that motivates you not to give up and do everything that depends on you. When you read the news that in three days our country collected 600 million for donations and the initially supposedly fantastic and unattainable collection was eventually closed in a matter of hours, you understand that nothing is impossible for the Ukrainian people. I am sure that together we will be able to do everything – and it is this knowledge that helps.
A volunteer’s dream
I would very much like our volunteer work to be no longer needed: for all people to find their loved ones alive and healthy, for everyone to have a roof over their heads, for everyone to have something to eat, something to wear. I dream that volunteering will become a memory of a certain period of our lives and there will no longer be an urgent need for it.
Photo: TET press service
