On the charge for Ukraine!
Cavanman leads Telsla refugee convoy
A Cavanman has successfully led a convoy of Tesla electric car owners in transporting almost 70 Ukrainians back to Ireland from a refugee centre in Poland.
And it wasn’t just human “guests” that Tom McEnaney helped ferry to safety. The Tesla Owners Ireland Group, together with additional volunteers, even rescued several family pets - three dogs, five cats, and a rat.
Tom, founder of the International Orphanage Development Programme (IODP), which has worked to improve the lives of orphans in Ukraine’s neighbour Belarus for more than two decades, began the mammoth trans-continental road-trip last Thursday, March 24.
The 15-strong car convoy, including three non-Teslas, completed the near 5,000 kilometre round-trip, arriving back in Dublin, on Monday of this week, March 28.
The four refugees who travelled with Tom - a mother, grandmother and two young children - will now move in with his own mum, Bridget McEnaney from Shercock, while other members of the wider McEnaney family are considering opening up their homes too.
“She [Bridget] just said ‘bring them on’ and she’s already trying to figure out what can she do for them, and where can they go to school - all those sort of things,” states Tom, a media consultant and newspaper columnist.
What made this trip, to Poland and back, most unusual is, logistically, the convoy needed to target a route with fast-charging points - stopping to plug in every 250 kilometres or so.
Organised in association with the Ukrainian Crisis Centre in Ireland, day one of the trip saw the drivers travel to Wales, before crossing from Britain into France via the Channel Tunnel. They spent the first night in Bruges, Belgium, and on day two set off to complete the journey to Poznan in Poland via the Netherlands and Germany. At the Lauenau Supercharger on the way to Berlin, the Irish contingent met a Dutch Tesla group with the same idea of bringing aid and returning with refugees.
Even before setting off from Ireland, the group encountered their first challenge - storage space - upon realising that many of the 28 families were fleeing with whatever of their lives could be packed into suitcases. More than half the refugees came from the embattled Ukrainian capital Kiev.
The family brought to Ireland by Tom all hail from the Donbas region of Ukraine originally. They were forced to leave their home after the first round of fighting broke out in 2014 from where they settled in Belarus. But, following Russia’s attack on Ukraine last month, they’ve had to move yet again. Tom says their story is an example of the displacement caused through conflict.
“A lot of them had nothing, or everything they had was in a number of suitcases. We had to figure out what to do, either put all the bags in one people carrier, but that would mean being able to bring less people. So I contacted by brother-in-law Luke [Reilly] and he drove a van over with us.”
‘Fear’
Tom tells the Celt that, aside from the continuing war, the biggest danger facing refugees, especially young women, is the threat of people traffickers.
“We’re finding that people are unbelievably scared. Having fled the war, many are now running the gauntlet of traffickers, which is why being properly accredited has made a big difference,” he says, telling now a Ukrainian woman in one Tesla owner’s car took a picture of the driver to send to her husband. She then broke down in tears and cried for the first hour of the journey until she could be convinced she was safe. “There is a lot of fear.”
The convoy’s journey back wasn’t without its own drama. A slight miscalculation meant there was a rush to try and meet the ferry to Ireland. A shortened “fuel” stop meant Tom reached boat with just 10 kilometres of charge remaining. The Tesla behind Tom had just five kilometres left in the battery. “It was a close one!” he remarks, the sense of relief palpable in his voice. “People said there was no way you could do that in a Tesla. It would have been easier in another car only because it was time critical. We gave ourselves a very, very challenging timetable. If I were to do it again, I’d give myself an extra day even.”
GoFundMe page
An online GoFundMe page ‘Ukrainian Refugee Appeal’ set up by Tom and IODP has to date raised more than €20,000 and is well on course to meeting and even surpassing its target of €30,000. A further €10,000 has been raised outside of that to help fund the Tesla driven refugee mission.
As well as taking 72 refugees to Ireland and freeing up space for new refugees to arrive in Poland, the Irish group dropped off a whole host of supplies, including dried and tinned food and medical supplies.
The Ukrainians who arrived in Dublin on Monday have all entered the government’s International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) system from where they’ll be assigned lodgings.
Accommodation appeal
While several of the Tesla convoy members have registered with the Irish Red Cross to host Ukrainian families, with plans to fly 22 more refugees to Ireland on Tuesday, Tom says there is a rush to organise more accommodation wherever possible.
“If there are other people in Cavan who are able to accommodate refugees, we still have quite a few we need to accommodate,” Tom tells the Celt.
The Tesla Owners Ireland Group members are now going to “take a breather” before considering another trip. But that doesn’t mean their humanitarian efforts will stop. “Our focus now is on finding accommodation for all of the group we brought over, also jobs. We’re just going to make sure everyone is okay,” said Tom.
However he doesn’t rule out another trip being organised, outside of trying to block-book flights out of Poland for refugees coming to Ireland. “We may do another trip. I’d recommend to anybody, if they’re thinking about doing this, don’t do it on your own. I’ve been going over the Eastern Europe for 23 years and I know how to organise a charity. Our organising party had somebody from Unicef Ireland, this was not something done on a whim. If you’re going to do it, make sure it’s well organised.”
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY: