Uncommonness. Experiences of NGOs and Participants in Civic Initiatives Assisting Migrants from Ukraine During the First Period of the War

Abstract

After February 22, 2022 Poland, a country bordering Ukraine, took in the largest number of refugees, and a mass, grass-roots, networked aid movement was born overnight. It embraced refugee reception points at the border, and a whole range of collections for food, clothes, medicines, hygiene products, and money. Medical and psychological assistance was organised, with the provision of collective sheltering, while private homes accepted refugee families for extended stays. The study, conducted by a three-person team from Collegium Civitas, covered a certain section of this movement, namely NGOs and civil initiatives involved in the relief effort since the first days of Russian aggression. Based on in-depth interviews, it was possible to reconstruct three interlocking phases of the relief activities: overcoming the chaos; a phase of better organisation; and finally attempts to adapt to the situation of a prolonged war. The theoretical layer of the study refers to the category of the subject or the issue of morality as a driver of social movements. As a key concept for understanding this phenomenon, the concept of organisations and social groups of a social movement has been proposed. The entire analysis is organised by the topic of experience, presented from individual, group and social perspectives. For many citizens in Poland, the experience of helping war migrants from Ukraine was a kind of threshold, which is described in terms of a “biographical trajectory”, involving a change in one’s identity.