“It feels like we’re making a difference”
We got the news just one day before: starting from tomorrow, we will send emergency aid parcels to Ukraine, free of charge. It all kicked off the next day – luckily we’re fairly used to quickly adapting to new things, and this was something completely new that we had to get done. And fast.
People from all over Sweden had opened their hearts and donated clothes, warm jackets, canned food, shoes, blankets, baby formula, toys and plenty of medical supplies. The items are packed in boxes of 20 that are then sent to us here at Malmö Foreign Department, where we repack them onto pallets. The pallets are loaded onto Polish trucks and sent to Poland before being distributed by the Ukrainian Postal Service to the people in Ukraine who need this help the most.
The challenge for us has been to send 350 containers a day to Ukraine while keeping up with our regular tasks. It’s an ergonomically demanding job, but despite the extra work, there have been no grumpy faces or complaints. Within the space of just a few weeks after launching this initiative, we had received over 2,300 containers – with about seven packages in each – and packed and sent 764 pallets! It’s a truly special thing we’re doing and it really feels like we’re making a difference, which feels great. We have an incredible team of co-workers here, and everyone is positive and understanding about the situation. We feel honored to do this important job and are proud that we have this opportunity to help the people of Ukraine.
I think each and every person on our team is a hero – we all make that little extra effort to help. And our employees are so fantastic that we’re managing to keep up with both our daily work and all the extra parcels for Ukraine. This is an amazing initiative, and it’s great to see people from all over the country helping to make it happen.”
31,873
... that's how many boxes were sent in total until October 2022.
About Joakim
Name: Joakim Hansson
Age: 33
Position: Group Leader at the Foreign Department, Malmö, Sweden
Closest colleagues: Peter Sveinsson, Stefan Dahl-Silow, Lena Hofvander and Tord Grevin
At PostNord since: 2008