Refugees from Ukraine cross the border at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland.
ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP via Getty Images
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ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP via Getty Images
Refugees from Ukraine cross the border at the border crossing in Medyka, southeastern Poland.
ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP via Getty Images
Notes of hope and love from around the world will be displayed hundreds of meters in the air to millions of refugees in Poland starting Friday night.
The notes are part of the project, Message to Ukrainewhich has collected thousands of messages from people all over the world – showing that distance and language barriers are not obstacles to human kindness.
The project is the brainchild of employees at Preply, a foreign language learning company. Anyone can send messages, in any language, on the Preply page. So far, people from 115 countries have left more than 5,600 messages in 84 languages. Each note has been translated into Ukrainian and English.
Daniele Saccardi, campaign director for Preply, told NPR: “The idea was simply to spread messages of positivity and hope. “What is most moving is the scope of the message. People from all over the world are sharing messages of strength and hope.”
The messages were set to pass through the 722-foot-tall Warsaw Flame in the heart of the Polish capital.
The messages included one from someone in Suriname, nearly 6,000 miles from Ukraine, partly saying “Don’t lose heart, especially in these dark times.”
Another message from Venezuela read: “I send you all my love in these difficult times for the people of Ukraine.”
It’s been more than a month since Russia invaded Ukraine and more than 3 million people have fled the country, many of them to Poland. This is why Preply wants to display these messages in Poland, to begin with, the organization said.
“It’s about putting them in front of the Ukrainians in a difficult time, so they can see solidarity from the world,” Saccardi said. “We chose Warsaw because it’s an important place, where a lot of people are waiting to reside.”
Saccardi says the staff at Preply worked hard to get the site up and running with messages in just two weeks.
“These processes often take months, so it was a particularly difficult and emotional few weeks for all of us,” he said.
It was even made possible by the fact that the war in Ukraine directly affected Saccardi’s colleagues.
“Our founders are based in Ukraine, which means we have a lot of colleagues who work in the Kyiv office that have been moved temporarily,” says Saccardi.
Messages from around the world, he said, touched those colleagues.
“They found them moving,” Saccardi said.
After a planned screening on Friday night, the messages will be delivered to digital billboards at the Warsaw Centralna station, where millions of Ukrainians are arriving in Poland for the first time.
“Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at and seeing other ways we can spread these messages to the people who can benefit from them,” Saccardi said.
