EO Interview // Dawid Adach, EO Poland President

Wow. What an honor to be here today with EO Poland President David Arak. Thank you so much for everything you're doing. We can only imagine what you're experiencing today, and I hope that you can help us as EO members understand just a little bit about what's happening in your space, with your chapter in your region and with your fellow EOers. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Hello, Winnie. Thank you for having me here today. I really appreciate what you just said and also all the feedback and support we are getting from the EO members. This is really amazing. I really appreciate it.

Well, I mean, EO entrepreneurs can only go so far alone. I always think about that. And I think about just what I've seen in the WhatsApp channels and the Facebook groups and all around the world in members coming together to support you to bring supplies, medical supplies, mattresses, donations. I've seen people go to the border to pick up people. Can you tell us a little bit about what's happening, where you are and how things, how things are progressing?

Yeah, exactly. Just like you said. So, so let me start with the situation over here. Like two days back, Polish government said that state that already 1 million refugees has crossed the Polish border. Right. And then day after, which was yesterday, the European Union foreign Affairs Joseph Borrell said that we should expect 4 to 5 million refugees. So this is, yeah, this is big. This is probably the biggest refugee movement since World War II, which we are just facing right now and we can see it with our own eyes. So this is really big. But there is also bright side, as you said, and I did a calculation you mentioned, the group we created, the support group EO for Ukraine. And there are people from 31 different countries which are already there and there are new people coming every day. So, yeah, as you said, this is really amazing. People, volunteer people ask me, hey, I want to fly there to support you. Some people with the medical background are flying next week. So, yeah, this is really, really amazing and uplifting amount of support which we are getting from EU members and not only obviously, but mostly from them and their friends and relatives. People from just today we are discussing sending a bus from Netherlands which is going to come tomorrow or day after Tomor, which is going to bring supplies to the border and then he's going to pick up 50 refugees and get them back safely, hopefully back to the Netherlands where they're going to find new homes. So that's really amazing. That's big.

And David, I've seen this in the channels People I don't even know many of their names. I don't know what chapters they're from. And just the fact that people have gone to such amazing levels to support people in need. And I feel like that everyone in EO is looking for ways that they can support. What are you telling people at this point in terms of how they can specifically support.

Sure. So this is what, to be honest, we are also learning on the fly. So this is also new to us. The whole situation is new. And there are people who are willing to supply us with as you said, like mattresses and so on. So what do we see few days is that actually this is really amazing. However, sometimes, you know, it's, it's. It's. What we are actually missing is this kind of coordination. So we know if we have like this, there are 250 plus people on the group and if everyone want to give something. When we try to coordinate this all together, it's just tremendous effort which we need to do to line this up. So we learned that probably until unless we have or we are able to get really huge package like palates of something, you know, the tons of something and we can get it shipped to Poland. If this. Nothing like that. It's not like that. Then probably the best way and this is to donate to the font so which we created and we've raised there already almost seven. Almost. We have $70,000 at the moment. But this is, this is, this is probably already obsolete because people are just pinging me because they are creating like a local, local funds and then they are just asking us hey, what should we do with this money? So until now, except for the very specific like the military grade equipment and all that stuff, most of the things are available in Poland. So what we are doing, we are trying to buy as much as possible here. So what we did, for example, one of the members from us they just founded 100 mattresses which we sent immediately to Ukraine to one of the shelter at UKRA. Another 100 is coming. And what's this? Tuesday. So on Thursday in two days they will be delivered to our shelter which we are just building next to Warsaw. So we are building shelter for 100 refugees with the option to extend to 1,000. So obviously we're going to need more. So that's what I would say. I mean what we can do right now we can just try to collect as much money as possible. Because what we also state very clearly is that we want to divide the support like 50, 50, which means the 50 will go directly it's for the instant support. So like this, you know, let me give you an example. So what has happened in very first days, we have supported, we have supported the, the, the camp, it's called Ostruda Camp, which is, which is run by some Christian community. But the point is that on the first day or the second day of the war there were like 130 children, mostly orphans, which were delivered there. And they were supervised by only 12 adults. By now there are more than 200 kids over there. So we immediately donated them just to support them because this is very important. So this is this instant support which we are talking about. But we also know that the situation is not getting better, right? It's been already almost two weeks when the war is going on. So we want to also have some fund for later because we already have 1 million refugees this big. We need to support them, we need to help them in the future to find jobs, to survive. So yeah, as I said, there are really great things and initiatives going on. So for example, one of the initiatives which was, which came from one of our Berlin friend. Berlin or German friend Tilio. This is the one actually. This is amazing. When Tilio is getting this difficult to get stuff and with, with the, with the help of one of the guy from EU Poland, from Krakow, they are actually passing this directly to the Ukraine. This is one. I was also wanted to mention the other where the other initiative where we got 700,000 the food, baby food jars and this is getting transported right now to Poland. So this is really amazing if you can get something like this. This is obviously really, really wanted, really required, really we need it right now. But other than that, yeah, it's just the best way is just to try to collect this money and then we're going to use it sooner or later because yeah, that's gonna. As we said, it's not sprint, right? So when the, when the war started, you know, all of a sudden all people around the globe, but mostly probably in Poland, obviously, because we are closest to that, they just, you know, jump on it. But we know it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. It's gonna last. So we can't let you know, we cannot just provide them support for the first week and then tell them, hey, you know, you need to deal on your own. Because those people, they lost their, their houses. You probably seen all of us seen this, these videos of bombarded cities and there is nothing to come back, right? This is, this is, this is a huge disaster for them. So to sum up, if we can get something like really, really big, like which makes sense to ship, then feel free to contact me. We will definitely find the great use for it. Otherwise, probably the shipping cost will be much more than the value of the supplies. So in that scenario, I would suggest to try to collect this money and then we will point you where we can spend it on. So for example, we had people who were just directly paying from us for the orders in local ikea. And this is going somewhere where this is needed right now.

Yeah, David, Amazing, amazing, amazing efforts by EO members all over the world. And we've seen that in the WhatsApp channel. And I think this is a wonderful opportunity to help people that are not in the channel to really see what's happening. And the support that EO members are providing to other EO members is just astounding. I've never seen anything like is.

The funny thing is that you said WhatsApp, but you and I, we already know we have to switch to the Telegram because the WhatsApp has a limit of 256 people. So you know, this limit was reached within a few days and now we had to switch because there are so many people who want to support this, this case. And you know, I'm, this is really amazing. And also, you know, on the other hand, this is also making my life a little bit more difficult because amount of messages I'm getting with the support we, amount of message which I, which I'm going through, it's countless. I mean this is, this is a lot of stuff and I'm obviously, obviously kidding that this, I need a lot of time to read all of that. But we are getting support from literally all around the world, different chapters. India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. So seriously, Africa, I can't name all of them. As I said earlier, 31 countries, people from 31 countries are there.

That's amazing. So you're president of Poland. What in eo, what have you learned in EO that has prepared you for this moment? David?

Yeah, so that's a good question. You know, obviously this is, this, this, this is a huge surprise for everyone, right? And no one, no, I'm not sure if you can prepare for something like that. But one thing which I mentioned yesterday to my chapter is that although we are, we are a business organization, right? I mean this is something which we have in common. But I just realized that there is more than that and we definitely have the same value. So before we actually started with this fund which we are raising right now, EU members. There are almost 50 people right now. They were involved in initiatives. The Polish members were involved in initiatives which raised more than 9 million doll the moment many of them, they accept, you know, refugees under their roof, under their houses. And I just feel that it's an honor to be part of this, this organization because I see that we have the same values. And this is, you know, this is organization is about the business. But when it comes to do something else, we don't. We don't ask questions. We do act. And this is really amazing. So what I learned is that this is. This is the place where I want to be because people share the same values. And the other thing, yeah, I mean this is about the leadership, right. I mean we can. It's not our fault. But I feel that nowadays we have. Sometimes we have to choose between bad and worse decision. You know, you have a fountain, you have to decide where this money should go. But same like running our own businesses, we know that we have to act. There is no time for discussion. There is no time for blaming someone, even if it takes the wrong decision. It's just we have to act. And I see this happening all around the world. People sending money without knowing me. Right. I mean they just trust each other. And thanks to that, we can really make impact. Right. So we are really, really, you know, it's not there anymore. But this be bold, which used to be there, I think really applies to what's going on now with this case from people from YO Global.

Yeah, it's amazing, David. I've seen people this. They don't even hesitate. They just give. They provide resources, support without even introductions.

Exactly.

What David.

Yeah, this was. Sorry to interrupt you. Exactly what's happening. So you might witness that, that you know, as soon as someone said, hey, we need this, whatever 100 metrics is like two people say, okay, I'm going to pay for it. Right. This is my credit card. People were literally just sending me pictures of their credit card and asking just to. Just to do it. Because there is no time to waste.

Just our connectedness and togetherness is. It's actually hard to describe in words, but through your stories, I think it should be clear to all of us about the value of EO now, not only to you, but to your chapter and to your community and to the world. A question about you, David. I know again, you are a yo polling president. How are you doing and how can we support you as an entrepreneur? What can we do to support you?

Sure, thank you for asking. Yeah. So you know I think we need a disclaimer here that, you know, probably we, as Yale Poland chapter, we are touched by that because, you know, most of us, our, our grandma or grandpas, they still remember World War II. So we know how it was. So that's why we are really emotional about it. So I would again like to thank you for all the support and all the great words. As for the Ukrainians and how we can support them. As I mentioned before, we are launching a shelter. Originally. We're going to start with 100 beds. They are on the way. We want to expand to 1000. But what we definitely need, except for what's actually happening, so the people are donating pr, people are giving us a great support in many ways. But we need to think as a global organization how we should deal with that. We as a Poland can be this buffer zone. We can accept this thousands of refugees and this is what's happening right now. I've got cold from other NGOs saying, hey, we were prepared for 500 refugees and all of a sudden 3,000 came and it's 11pm and you have to do something about it. The people has to sleep somewhere. So we need to think together as a global organization how we can deal with that, mostly in Europe, how we can combine our efforts, how we can set up this support chain so, for example, we can accept these refugees. But then all the surroundings chapters, surrounding countries will up with the idea of structured way to, for example, come with buses and get, you know, 100, 200, 500 people a week every week and get them to, to, to farther to west, which is obviously tricky because if you can imagine these people, they don't want to go. I mean, they are really hoping that the war will get over. So they don't want to go far from the, from the border because, because they're hoping that they can get back. But obviously sometimes there is nothing to come back. So we, there are, yeah, I would say two things. One, collect donation as much as you can because it's a marathon. We're going to need that in the future. And second, we need to figure out, we need to work on a structured way, how we can, how to show other NGOs that we as entrepreneur what we learn, what we can apply to the given situation, how we can organize all the logistics, supplies, supply chains. Yeah, just everything which is needed just to get it done. Because yeah, this is just if, if, if people, if the analytics are right, we just have 1/5 or what's going to happen and we already are out of space and out of resources. So it's just going to get worse and we need to prepare for that.

So the website, David, I believe is Ukraine.eopoland.org Is that correct? That's right.

Yes, exactly. Ukraine.Poland.org.

David, thank you so much for your time today and sharing your stories, telling us what's happening. Just for all of the stories that you shared around specific examples and helping members understand what's happening with your chapters. And shout out to the members that have been supporting you all over the world. And I look forward to just supporting you and continuing to staying connected to you and your chapter. We're here for you. We're here together. And thank you for your time today. We're with you.

Thank you. As you said, shout out to all your members because we are just coordinating that those are the guy, those are the people, those are the folks who actually make mark and make this happen. They are building this shelter. We are just spending their money here.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.