About us
Our movement was born on Friday 25th February as a united response to the outrageous news that shocked the world just one day earlier. It started with a selfless act of kindness from just one man, Alex, one of our friends, who bought an ambulance at his own expense to send to Ukraine. He started to fill it with clothes, long shelf-life products and medication. His initiative quickly spread across the community in South-West London. We also sent an appeal to the wider community for donations and dry food, or clothes people could spare.
In the first two days alone, we raised thousands and collected several truckloads of people’s generous donations, which reached the Ukrainian border within days.
What we do?
We have so far delivered 64 ambulances to such destinations as Kyiv City Hospital, Mykhailovsky Hospital, Boryspil neonatal centre, Okhmatdyt Children’s Perinatal, Poltava, Chernihiv hospitals, Medical Plaza centre in Dnipro, Pervomaisk in Kharkiv region, Odessa emergencies services, Lviv, Kharkiv A&E, Pobuzhie Children’s, Artziz district hospital, Elderly home in Kirovograd region, 6 hospitals in Sumy region, 4 hospitals in Kherson region, 2 hospitals in Lviv and others.
Our story
The war in Ukraine is an unspeakable tragedy for millions of people and in the light of such horrific, unprecedented events, it is hard to stay neutral.
People have no electricity, they are in desperately in need of medicine, food and other essentials. In particular, there is an extreme shortage of medical supplies, generators and ambulances.
The situation is simply desperate. Every single bandage, every first aid kit and every mode of transportation matters.
We can never do too much when it comes to helping save lives.
With some hospital facilities destroyed or not in use due to the imminent threat of attack and a growing number of people requiring urgent medical attention, doctors across the country are pleading for any help they can get.
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Our team
Aliya Aralbayeva
On February 25, 2022, 24 hours after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Aliya Aralbayeva appealed to local mothers in Wimbledon to raise funds to provide medical aid for victims of the war. Her appeal received overwhelming support from local people. With the support of her Ukrainian-born husband, Aliya ordered life-saving medical aid and sent the first convoys of ambulances to where help was needed most. Our first ambulances arrived in Kyiv on March 5.
Aliya is an international lawyer, mother and wife who strongly believes that thanks to the support of donors from the West, Ukraine and Ukrainians will stand against this aggression.
Daniel Whitehead
Dan first became involved with ambulances when Aliya asked him to reverse an ambulance through a narrow gateway to help promote MLLU's activities to a concert audience in Wimbledon. Having driven one backwards about 50 metres Dan and his wife then drove the same one forwards about 1000 miles to Ukraine. By then Dan had caught the bug!
Away from MLLU Dan is a father, husband, singer and deeply incompetent athlete. He chairs the Academy Choir Wimbledon, is a Liveryman of the Musicians' Company, and is a trustee of the Wimbledon Village Hall Trust. In his spare time he is the head of legal for Citigroup's Issuer Services business.
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Gerard Strahan
Retired main board Director of Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, a FTSE 250 company, which specialised in analysis and data of international financial and hard commodities markets. Now involved in helping to run MLLU and the logistics involved in providing ambulances and medical products to hospitals in war torn Ukraine. Also provides support to Little Rock Early Childhood Learning Centre in Kibera, Nairobi, as well as to Cornwall Community Foundation which provides grants to help Cornish communities with grassroots projects that need support.
Sally Strahan
Former member of the then Foreign & Commonweath Office posted to New York & Helsinki, followed by a spell in publishing. Involved in various local and national charities whilst bringing up 2 children, but now out of 'retirement' to work with MLLU.