Strong Together: housing and accommodation for Ukraine

The volunteering website has raised more than €1 million and successfully sheltered more than 33,000 refugees in Lithuania.

In times of crisis, solidarity makes a difference. At the moment, it is a volunteer-led initiative created by the Pelėdos Squad of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (LRU) to provide genuine and safe housing solutions to refugees from the war in Ukraine.

Journalist and volunteer for the initiative and the LRU, Edmundas Jakilaitis, is well trained in quick thinking and effective organization. “We knew that Russia was about to attack and we knew we could do something to help.” Strong Together is the result.

“No person is sleeping in a station, school or public space. Everyone is staying in people’s houses, the idea is working.”

Strong Together (stronger together), always

Strong Together is a user-friendly online platform for Lithuanian families willing to offer a place in their homes and provide accommodation for refugees.

The initiative started in 2020 during the first coronavirus lockdown in Lithuania to provide essential protections, such as food and medicine, to vulnerable and at-risk people.

“We tried to imagine how we could help people with health problems, people with disabilities and older people. Back then, we were trying to think about how to help people who couldn’t leave their homes; Now all is the opposite”.

“First, we launched a public awareness campaign and put out web banners and press releases, but the public really got involved when we created . This is how we gathered almost 10,000 volunteers so quickly.”

Still, the sustained strength and speed of the response to the Strong Together project speaks to an outpouring of solidarity that has not abated among the public despite nearly three years of ongoing crises.

“We knew that people needed help, so we thought we should round up volunteers. This is how our organization worked during the two quarantines, with thousands of volunteers helping people through a telephone line that we set up.”

After two long lockdowns, it seemed that Strong Together would no longer be necessary. Edmundas relived his daily life, expecting the same thing. For a short time, the group disbanded until everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Housing, reception and solidarity

Bordered by the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the southeast and Belarus to the southwest, Lithuania shares almost 1,000 kilometers of land with the two nations in conflict with Ukraine.

So, with the many thousands of Ukrainian refugees trying to squeeze through the narrow corridor along the Lithuanian-Polish border, it soon became clear that the group needed to grow their operation quickly.

“On Monday we came up with the idea. On Tuesday, we made a website. Then on Wednesday it was up and running and we already had thousands of volunteers.”

“About two weeks before the war started, when we felt it was going to start, we started preparations. So we decided that we needed to create a system where people could offer their flats and houses to refugees.”

For Strong Together, the transition from a post-lockdown pause to an impending humanitarian crisis of high operational complexity required a new approach that was quick to deploy, reliable, and infinitely scalable.

And when Edmundas and his team needed a website, he recommended . Strong Together contacted us and we helped get it off the ground.

A realistic answer

Edmundas and a unit of 27 volunteers immediately set up a refugee center on the Polish-Ukrainian border, transforming a four-star hotel into an aid station with military precision.

“One of the most important things for a person fleeing war is dignity.”

Edmundas has no doubt that it was “definitely the best refugee center in the world”. First, everyone who arrived at the center was greeted with a steaming bowl of Ukrainian borscht. Then, they sat together, ate at tables with pristine white tablecloths, got some sleep, showered, and recovered as much as possible before deciding where to go next.

Still, Edmundas and his team knew they had to be very careful when organizing the next step. Well aware of the potential risks of human trafficking, Strong Together quickly decided that it was too risky to allow volunteers to bring vulnerable people to Lithuania without professional supervision.

“You cannot put two mothers with four children in a car with a stranger to take them to Lithuania. We hire a professional bus company because they work under contract. We knew their travel routes and could track them all the way. There were no exceptions: the buses took people to the official registration centers and we stayed with them until they could apply for official accommodation or go to their relatives.”

An online solution

Edmundas and the other Strong Together volunteers are multi-skilled, but they knew they needed a platform that was simple, reliable, and quick to set up.

Creating a website was the only obvious way forward, and it represents all the best practices of effective online communication.

“You have to follow the call to action principle. If you want people to do something, you have to give them the tools. So we needed a platform that empowered people to take action and that wouldn’t have been possible without a website.”

Flexibility, ease of use and the ability to grow at any time are top concerns for Strong Together as the crisis continues to unfold.

“We thought about how to build things that can work for everyone, not just an individual.”

While advertising the website itself proved to be a challenge, Edmundas and the team of 27 volunteers work daily with communication, media and marketing.

Taking matters into their own hands, they were able to design and publish their own website and find one that could handle traffic from a conflict that has displaced more than 10 million people and counting.

What Edmundas did not expect was the huge amount of traffic and the help of the people who offered support.

“In the beginning, we financed everything ourselves. Then one day, after creating the website and spreading the word, we found that we had €100,000 in our account. The next day we had 200,000, and thus we raised more than 1 million”.

As conflict continues to ravage Ukraine, Strong Together is committed to continuing to serve those who need its help.

The credo is simple: get up and show your face when those around you need help. It’s a simple, unshakeable belief for Edmudas and everyone involved in Strong Together, defined by self-motivation and solidarity, empowered by the right tools for the job.

“If you make something yourself and try it, it may not be easy, but you will learn that it will work out in the end.”

The war is not over yet and people still need shelter. Strong Together is looking for volunteers who can give refugees in Lithuania a home.

If you have an idea that could help Ukrainians and you need accommodation, contact us through ; We are here to help you.

Luis is an eCommerce and website builder professional who loves digital marketing. He is dedicated to helping companies improve their online presence through marketing practices. When he is not sitting in front of the computer, he is surely cooking a meal or training.