(NewsNation) — Weeks after he went to Ukraine the first time to bring its citizens essential supplies, a U.K. pub owner returned to the war-torn country— this time with a 14-vehicle convoy.
On Tom Littledyke’s first trip, he drove a minibus, filled with donations from townspeople, to Ukraine by himself. During his second trip, he was joined by the 14 vehicles, which included two ambulances and some ATVs.
One of the volunteers Littledyke went to Ukraine with heard about an orphanage in Moldova that needed help, as it had just taken in 20 Ukrainian children with developmental disabilities who mostly speak Russian.
“It’s quite sad, actually,” he said. “There’s now this language barrier, as well as learning difficulties.”
Now, he and the other volunteers are helping out at the Moldovan orphanage.
Littledyke said he’s trying to see if someone who speaks Russian, and who has experience with this kind of situation who can go out there, as well.
“The most important thing is to get people out there so we can sort of maybe diagnose the needs, and then at least we can sort of register their next home essentially,” Littledyke said.
Currently, Littledyke and his team are organizing future trips to Ukraine.
They want to get a charity set up through the licensing commission. As soon as that’s done, Littledyke said, he wants to start distilling vodka using a Ukrainian recipe to raise money to buy supplies for the cause. Eventually, he plans to start a distillery.
Most importantly, Littledyke said, he wants to make sure people don’t forget about the devastation happening in Ukraine.
“Keep talking about it, make this a current problem. One of the biggest issues is that this becomes something that we see on the media every single day, we start to normalize it,” Littledyke said. “We want everybody to just keep an eye on the fact that this is horrible. This is happening every single day.”