National Student's Day: "This generation sometimes needs a shock to be supportive, but when it needs to be, it is"
On this National Student's Day we bring you the stories of two students from Universidade Católica Portuguesa who, each in their own way, are helping people who are escaping from the war in Ukraine. Faced with the suffering that we face every day, these students have no doubts in saying that "solidarity is very much alive in the academic world".
Rodrigo Alvim is 22 years old. He is in the 3rd year of the Social and Cultural Communication programme at the Faculty of Human Sciences (FCH) of UCP. He left on March 21 for Poland, with a group of friends, with the aim of bringing refugees who are in reception centres in Lublin, a city which borders Ukraine, near Lviv.
They left in four vans with medicines, basic necessities, underwear and other products that they managed to collect from companies, parents and friends. On their return they will bring back 24 people, already identified and authorised by the Lisbon City Council to enter Portugal.
Rodrigo says that "every day he watches with anguish the news coming from Ukraine". He says that "it is the subject of conversations, sometimes very harsh, in the family", because his father "works in the European Commission and it's hard to understand why this type of institutions can't do more to help those people".
This student admits that he began to grow within himself "a feeling of unease and wanting to help to minimise a little bit all that suffering". This gave rise to the "idea of reactivating the association that he founded in 2018, UP TO YOU, and going to Poland with vans to bring some people".
"These have been days of hard work to organise this mission, but we had the support of the entire academic community of Católica, from colleagues and professors - especially Professor Alexandra Lopes -, to elements of the Social Responsibility office," the student emphasises, with emotion.
A support that, he guarantees, "was present from the very first day" and that, according to the student "showed that this generation sometimes needs a shock to be solidary, but when it needs to be, it is".
An opinion that is shared by Hugo Martinho Chaves, also a student of Social and Cultural Communication at FCH. This 1st year student, who wants to be a war reporter, sees with "concern the escalation of violence within Europe", a conflict that "shows the weaknesses of the institutions and the lack of action of this generation of politicians in defence of Ukraine and the suffering people".
In the Church of Sta. Iria in Arroios, he handed over the donations that he bought with his own monthly allowance, because he feels "obliged to help, with concrete things like food and medicine, but also calling attention to the need to be more reactive".
"As a future journalist, I feel obliged to warn others. We can't just condemn Russia's invasion, we need to take action and help the Ukrainians," adds the student.