EOA welcomes employees at our member firms ‘pulling together’ to help the people of Ukraine

The EOA welcomes the efforts made by its members to help the people of Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict with Russia.

A number of our members have been in touch to highlight things they have been doing to help and the Employee Ownership Association wanted to showcase these examples.

Pennine Healthcare’s efforts

Derby-based Pennine Healthcare, one of the UK’s leading employee-owned, medical technology manufacturers, for example, donated £200,000 worth of medical equipment to help support the people of Ukraine.

The emergency donation, made up of face masks, dressings, bandages, sanitiser, gowns and more, has been sent to Nova Poshta (Help Ukraine), a Ukrainian delivery service, who will distribute the supplies to those most in need.

Pennine worked with Active Freight Southampton, and Uniworld Logistics, to arrange transportation of the essential materials to those who need it most.

Graeme Cameron, Pennine Healthcare’s CEO, said: “We are fortunate to work in an industry which has purpose and the protection of life at its core, and we could not stand back and allow a humanitarian crisis to unfold without us helping.

“We are an employee-owned organisation and that gives us a unique position to help others first. We hope that this donation will help the people of Ukraine and we wish that peace comes soon.”

Meanwhile, employee-owned Espace, which provides specialist freight services to and from mainland Europe, has also told the EOA of its efforts.

The Lichfield-based firm worked with one of its longest-standing clients, Evtec Automotive, to deliver four trucks worth of much-needed supplies to Catholic charity Caritas, which is helping Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border into eastern Poland.

Espace’s efforts to help

As a transport company, Espace offered its services for free as the “appetite was there to help”, says Founder and Managing Director Tony Shally.

Supplies such as bottled water, sleeping bags, blankets, thermos flasks, power banks and sanitation were delivered to the distribution centre in Lublin, eastern Poland.

“Everyone was keen to do something, but nobody really knew what to do,” said Tony.

“I had decided to send two of our own vans and get the staff here to bring stuff in, but then our biggest customer, Evtec, contacted us to say they were opening up their depot to the whole of Coventry to collect and would we be able to support them with providing the transport and customs into Poland and finding a distribution channel in Poland. We have a guy who works for us who’s in Poland who connected us with Caritas.

“We opened up our offices here to the local community because the appetite to give was really strong and people were working overtime and on Saturdays to pack boxes so we could send them to Coventry to be loaded onto the trucks.

“It was just another great example of people pulling together, of us coming together as a group of people for a common cause. And it helped to really solidify us again as an employee-owned business where we stopped what we were doing, reacted as a group and were able to help.”

Espace Europe worked with Evtec Automotive, haulage partners Link International and Extrego, the Institute of Export and Trade, its Polish customs agent Porath, and Caritas to deliver the supplies.

The business community at large has been doing a lot to reach out, but the EOA believes these examples demonstrate how being employed-owned allows employees to be involved in these decisions to take action, and that when they have a stake and a say they can help direct resources on things that matter to them.

These are just examples of the donations and efforts being made by our member firms, and the EOA welcomes any efforts made to help the people of Ukraine in these difficult times.

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