The Swindon Humanitarian Aid Partnership (SHAP ) was formed within weeks of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. In the subsequent 18 months SHAP have collected sorted boxed and transported over 1100 tonnes of aid into Ukraine -primarily to the east of the county where the war is at its most ferocious.

Mike Bowden , the Chair of SHAP takes up the story

“We were invited to speak at one of the Swindon Lion Clubs regular meeting and seemingly our enthusiastic and energetic support of Ukraine and locally based Ukrainians (in terms of a broad range of support and friendship ) made its mark. Within a few days I received a phone call with the wonderful news that The Swindon Lions would donate £1,000 to our organisation. Given that we have managed to deliver 1100 tonnes of aid at a total cost to SHAP of under £16,000 you can see just how significant a cash injection of £1,000 is to us.”

Acting Lion President Helen Marson said, “It is hard to imagine the stress and trauma being endured on a daily basis by Ukrainian families -people just like us, who through no fault of their own find themselves in a war zone. There was unanimous support at our meeting to make a significant donation to SHAP who are clearly doing so much to help. We have asked that our donation is used to help finance the conversion of a bus into what SHAP call a Children’s Story Bus which will visit communities all over Ukraine providing fun and smiles to young children.
Mike and I are discussing ways in which we can work in partnership over the coming months and make all Swindonians proud to support such a resilient and inspirational group of people.”