Jenny Peysin Architecture: Volunteering for ukraine

THe jpa team takes our questions about their week volunteering with russians for ukraine in Przemyśl,poland, at the ukrainian border

 By Julia Gamolina

From May 15-May 22, the Jenny Peysin Architecture (JPA) team, led by Jenny Peysin, traveled to a small town in Poland, Przemyśl, where they volunteered from a grassroots organization called Russians for Ukraine. On their return, the team answered  our questions about their experience.

The team comprised of:

Jenny Peysin, AIA - Founder, Certified Passive House Designer

Jack Grover - Project Manager

Natalie Pierro - Project Manager

Alec Rovensky - Architectural Designer

…

Julia Gamolina: Jenny, what your team did is amazing. How did you decide to do this in the first place?

Jenny: I found out on a call with my mom that a family friend of my parents, Sasha, traveled to Poland to volunteer with Russians for Ukraine. At the time, I was feeling pretty helpless about the war and our ability to help. My husband and I have been donating what we could to various aid organizations, but personally volunteering had not crossed my mind as a possibility due to the demands of work and my two small kids. After hearing about Sasha’s experience however, I expressed interest and my husband immediately told me that I need to drop everything and go. I think he could tell that I needed it on a personal level. It is really thanks to him that I was able to make this work and his suggestion that I raise the possibility up with the rest of the office. 

Why was this important for you to do with your company? I know you know others in the Russian and Ukrainian communities in the city, but you went with your staff. I think this sets an amazing example by the way, to demonstrate that people can and should engage in social causes through their professional identities, and do it together.

Jenny: We had been talking about the war in our office from the moment it broke out. Both myself and Alec are Ukrainian, but the four of us had always had open discussions about the crisis and on how to raise awareness and funds to aid the Ukrainian resistance. On our office social media, we also shared images from both Alec’s and my recent trips to Ukraine to showcase the beautiful architectural fabric of Ukrainian cities. When I decided that volunteering on the border was something I wanted to do, it just made sense to propose the opportunity to my team. Within 24 hours of a quick Slack message to our general channel, everyone was on board! I think it really speaks to the incredibly supportive and trusting office environment that we have developed, that they agreed to accompany me on this somewhat unknown journey.

Jenny and Alec, you are both Ukrainian. Talk to me what this experience meant for you personally. Also, why did you choose Russians for Ukraine as the non-profit you wanted to volunteer with?

Alec: Russian was my first language as the Eastern region of Ukraine uses Russian as its primary language. Growing up, I remember often being embarrassed of my Ukrainian heritage. I also thought Russian was useless when all I wanted was to learn English to “fit in” with the other Americans at my school. I’ve since reversed course completely, and found great pride in my heritage and much use in knowing a second language. At the refugee transit center, I realized just how important this skill and identity can be. Many people I spoke to asked me about my background, and I felt proud telling them my parents’ immigration story.

Jenny: The choice of Russians for Ukraine stemmed from knowing someone who volunteered with them and had a good experience. After learning about this grassroots organization, I attended a Zoom meeting with the organizer as well as set up calls with several past volunteers to make sure that our time there will be used as effectively as possible. Everyone had basically positive feedback. 

In terms of the meaningfulness of the trip — I cannot overstate how valuable it was to be able to have some small part in easing the very difficult situation for the refugees that we interfaced with. It was all too easy to project members of my own family on the families that I was helping because so much about them was so familiar. This of course made the whole experience incredibly moving but also frankly emotionally draining. Like Alec, this war has refocused my identity from vaguely Soviet “Russian,” as that is the language I speak, to specifically “Ukrainian.” 

Natalie and Jack, what did this experience mean for you given your backgrounds?

Jack: It meant a great deal to be able to go and provide some amount of relief to all of these refugees experiencing their hardest days of their lives. I don’t have any connection to Ukraine, or Russia with any family, but I could see the toll the war was taking on Jenny and Alec, as they watched what was happening in their homeland, so it was really quite emotional to get involved with the crisis firsthand and understand a bit more of their perspective.

I think it was also just really incredible to see so many other volunteers from all over that didn’t necessarily have any connections to Ukraine either, and yet we were all here to help in whatever way possible. It was a good reminder that you don’t need to be from, or have any connection to a place to be able to lend a helping hand.

Natalie: Having seen the conflict through the perspectives of Ukrainian-American friends like Jenny and Alec, it was easy to accept an opportunity to physically go and do something, despite not really knowing what to expect. It was additionally meaningful going to Poland being that my Mother’s side of the family is Polish — my great grandparents fled the country before World War I. As a third-generation American, I grew up eating Polish food but never learning the language, and I don’t think I ever fully processed my family’s immigration story. Seeing this refugee experience happening in our present time made the past feel more real, and I now have a new appreciation for what it means to leave home, family, and country behind in a crisis.  

All of you, please tell me about your time there. What did you see, what was it like, what was going through your mind and when? Who did you meet?

Jenny: From very early on, we decided to split into teams of two, with each team having one person that can speak Russian, in order to maximize our productivity. Jack and I ended up focusing our work at the main train station and Alec and Natalie spent their time at Tesco, a refugee center. 

At the station, my job was twofold; Primarily, it was to help as many Ukrainian refugees as possible understand the logistics of getting where they need to go — which best train or bus to take, where to get a ticket or where to spend the night if needed. From what we saw, there was an equal amount of people escaping the fighting as there were people trying to get home to areas of the country where the war had quieted down. Regardless, we encountered primarily mothers with their children, elderly people, as well as people with disabilities.

Also, all of these displaced people had many bags of supplies and belongings that they now had to transport across this train terminal, which was not built for this volume of commuters and not even outfitted with basic infrastructure such as elevators or ramps. The second half of my duties was to help carry as many suitcases as I could within the 12 hour shift. The days moved very fast because between carrying bags and answering endless quickfire questions, we barely had time to really reflect on the situation or sit down for a meal. It was go go go until we would get back to the house at night, have a shot of vodka and go over the events of the day with Natalie and Alec. 

Jack: What I saw was thousands of people, almost entirely women and children, carrying their entire lives in suitcases. I cannot even begin to imagine the decisions that had to be made of what was brought and what was left behind. Those bags were heavy.

As a non-Ukraininan-Russian-Polish speaker, I found myself shuttling bags up and down the stairs of the train station all day long. I made it my goal to move as many people and their belongings, as fast as possible. I picked up a few words I could speak for general directions, but it was oftentimes extremely chaotic, and I would find myself trying to mime the directions to confused refugees, if I couldn’t find a translator nearby. 

Alec: I spent most of the week translating at a mall-turned-refugee transit center called “Tesco.” At this location, representatives from several countries set up tables to arrange accommodations and transport to their respective countries for the refugees. I was working on individual cases, some more complex than others, as we essentially helped set up new lives abroad for people fleeing the war.

I kept thinking about how my own family went through a similar process in the 90s, how my entire existence was determined at a center quite like this one. It was incredible to be part of such a critical turning point in these families' lives. I met people coming from several cities and the countryside of Ukraine, each with a unique story. For the most part, I was helping women and children who had little or no knowledge of the whereabouts of their husbands and fathers. Some were planning to wait out the war wherever they were going, but many were moving permanently.

Natalie: I was also working at the Humanitarian Aid Center for the week. The building is a large windowless mall where the shops and signage had been gutted and the rooms were repurposed into a variety of uses, including sleeping quarters — large rooms lined with cots — medic and first aid, a pharmacy, two daycares, and a nursing room. There was also a designated area for pet supplies and cages, a counter to pick up toiletries and basic necessities, a “shopping” area for clothes, a station to pick up linens, and even a corner where a gentleman provided haircuts.

This was a destination for refugees who were seeking asylum in other countries outside of Poland. and a mini-community was formed around the need to provide short-term shelter and provisions until transportation could be arranged for those refugees. It should be noted that this was an entirely volunteer-run facility, most of whom were a part of grassroots organizations or were individuals who just showed up looking for ways to help.

I filled my day by checking in with volunteer coordinators and taking on jobs wherever I was needed. Manual tasks included sorting mountains of laundry, disinfecting blankets and pillows, and cleaning sleeping quarters. When possible, I would answer questions for refugees — in English or miming — and help them settle in. I also attended a couple volunteer training sessions, including an instructional course on working with people and children going through trauma.  

The latter proved particularly helpful when I started volunteering a couple hours a day at the outdoor children’s play area. Fenced in on a swath of grass next to the parking lot, this area included a library tent, craft area, trampoline, scooters and toys, and a circus tent home to a small group of German circus performers. With barely a word of Ukrainian or Russian between us, we somehow supervised refugee children and attempted to keep them entertained with music jams, rowdy soccer, trampoline time, juggling and hula-hoop acts (from the Circus performers), or in a particularly desperate moment - my one-woman charades performance where I acted out things visible in the area and the kids would guess by pointing.

What surprised you about your time there? What didn't you expect?

Jenny: I was surprised to meet so many volunteers with such diverse backgrounds. We worked side by side with people who left behind their lives in the US or Europe and moved to the border indefinitely to aid in the crisis. Many of our housemates were political refugees from Russia, who escaped due to the threat of being jailed for their anti-war sentiments.

Jack: I did not expect the situation to be so politically charged. The local government in Poland was trying to shut down the refugee center, and the local sentiment in Poland towards the refugees was not as welcoming as I anticipated. In addition to that, many members of our group were having a hard time registering as a volunteer because they had Russian documents — this made more sense but was still a bit of a shock.

I also didn’t expect to have so many encounters with the Romani Community. It was unfortunate to see so much hostility towards them as a people from the other volunteers and authorities. I could see they also needed help, since they were often treated differently from the other refugees.

Natalie: I was surprised that there was so much lightness in such a dark situation. I was immediately struck by the outpouring of human generosity of the volunteer community in donating their time, skills, and energy — many of whom had been there for a couple weeks or months. Immediate connections were made in bonding over this shared experience, often while speaking different languages and only being able to communicate with a few common words. This energy was then channeled into creating some positive moments for the refugees - including circus acts, music performances, crafts, haircuts, helping them try on clothes, and listening to their stories.

Jenny, I know you crossed the border into Ukraine to hand deliver supplies, and spent the night. Tell me about this. 

Jenny: Yes — this was not necessarily something that I had planned for. We were wrapping up our shift at the station and received a Telegram message from our volunteer coordinator saying that they need someone Russian-speaking with a US passport to accompany an American driver to Lviv to deliver some of the humanitarian aid that the organization had collected, including four large suitcases of medical supplies that my team brought from the US.

Not many people in our house fit that criteria, so I volunteered to go. From that moment, it all moved pretty rapidly. We loaded up a van full of boxes of food, toys, and medical supplies and with my driver, Tommy — a sound designer from LA — and we set off towards the border. When I texted my parents that I was going on this mini-mission, they only had one question “Do you have a bulletproof vest?” Luckily, I was given one as we were leaving. It was reassuring to hear that my parents were behind this decision and were proud of me for making it. 

It was a quick hour and a half drive to Lviv from the border. Most of the time I was busy coordinating the logistics of the deliveries and serving as a navigator for Tommy. We ended up spending the night on the floor of an apartment that belonged to a friend of RFU’s founder, who shared with us his experience of the war over a large bowl of spaghetti and proudly demonstrated a box full of Russian tanks scraps that his friends mailed him from the front lines in Kharkiv. 

Back to all of you, what was the most impactful experience or memory you had there? 

Alec: I helped a mother and her fifteen year old son emigrate to Japan. We spent a very long time at the table as she thoroughly dissected the terms and conditions of their move to this new country. She told me that they had left her elderly mother and dog behind in Ukraine, and that she wanted to help her son establish a new life elsewhere so she could eventually return home herself. Later that day, we bumped into each other and she told me that she was just informed by a friend in Ukraine that they were preparing to draft all men as young as fifteen years old. If they had not left when they did, her son would have been drafted to the front. I keep thinking about how narrowly her son escaped Ukraine, and about how few men there were at the center in general, because they were not permitted to leave the country. 

Jenny: Jack and I were shuttling sandwiches and water from World Central Kitchen, which was the nonprofit that provided food for the refugees, to a bus-full of people about to depart for Odessa. I was standing not far from two siblings, roughly eight and ten and overheard their conversation. The brother said to the sister, “Maybe we can still change mom’s mind,” and she said “No, she has decided.” When I asked them what they meant, they told me that they knew they were going to a place where there is shooting but that their mother could no longer live abroad for lack of language and finances and that she thought she had no choice but to go back home. To hear little kids have these conversations and be hyper aware of the danger that they are headed towards was heartbreaking.

Jack: I was working at the station alone one day, and a few of the other volunteers and I had just finished helping move a ton of the refugees from several incoming trains over to the passport control building at the train station so that they could board the next train home to Odessa. They would all need to wait in line in the hot sun for the next hour with all of their baggage, before they would be allowed to board. I could tell they were completely exhausted from their journey, so I took it upon myself to flag a Ukrainian speaking volunteer to help me ask the crowd if they needed any food or water, since they could not leave the line to go get it themselves. Jenny and I had done this a few times already for other buses or trains earlier in the week, so I assumed this would be no issue.

When I went to go get a cart full of food and water to pass out, I was stopped by the manager of the World Central Kitchen. He asked me who the food and water was for, to which I replied ‘refugees’. He then asked me to clarify if they were going back to Ukraine, or if they were fleeing. I told him that shouldn’t matter, but he responded by saying “If they are going back to Ukraine, then they are not refugees, and you cannot give them any of my food or water”.

I couldn’t believe it. In that moment, my heart sank, and I was so angry to hear this man refuse to help this group of refugees simply because they were going back. I felt so helpless, having just promised this crowd I would bring them food and water, that I could not face telling them that they were ‘undeserving’ of the supplies. While we weren’t able to secure water for this train of people, Jenny and I ended up going to the store right after this happened and used a small portion of the funds we had raised to load up our car full of waters that we were able to pass out to people in line for future trains to Ukraine.

Natalie: I really connected with a young teenage girl while she was staying at the refugee center for a couple days with her Mother and Grandmother. It began with her visiting the RFU table and falling in love with a dog named Vesta, belonging to one of the volunteers in our group. Even though the young girl only knew a couple of words in English, we bonded over playing with the dog, and eventually had conversations through Google Translate and got to know one another by sharing photos of our pets and homes. We started scheduling chats throughout the day, and at some point she decided to take me on as a Russian student, teaching me the alphabet and a couple key phrases. While the interaction was simple in nature, I was blown away by this girl’s bright energy and positive attitude. She was both sweet and mature, while showing tremendous resilience as she patiently waited for her family to relocate to Brussels — for who knows how long.  We still chat on Instagram.

What would you all encourage those of us in the US, to do and to do better? 

Alec: I encourage everyone in the US to support immigration policy reform and provide aid to refugees where they can. The enthusiasm with which each of the country representatives at the transit center and the host families were welcoming refugees into their homes was exemplary. We should always support people, especially in these difficult times, because one day we may be the ones who will need their help.

Jenny: I absolutely agree with Alec - while we saw how much good can be done on a grassroots level, we were also exposed to all of the drawbacks of handling a complex situation such as this refugee crisis with small scale intervention. The only real way to help people escape danger is to reform US immigration policy. On an individual level, I do feel it is important for people to stay engaged and not let this war fall off the front page.  

Jack: I also want to add that I think we need to treat others with more compassion, and have more conversations amongst friends and family about the reality of the situation we find ourselves in in this country with regards to foreign policy. I think we as a country have some problematic views of refugees, and often lead with aggression and hostility toward them, as opposed to open arms and compassion. No matter where they may be coming from, they have likely been through worse circumstances than most of us US born have ever or will ever experience in our lives.

Natalie: I would encourage anyone who is able to actively seek out in-person volunteering experiences, no matter the crisis or cause. Based on this experience, I saw how eye-opening, engaging, and physically impactful volunteering can be. Generally speaking, I think it’s easy to be complacent in our lives and feel detached from issues, and an in-person interaction provides a helpful perspective shift for both our individual sense of self and the bigger world picture.

Finally, why is this work and this type of initiative important specifically for architects to be involved in, and lead?

Jenny: During this trip, we witnessed what happens when public spaces are pushed to their limits, as was the case with the train station, or are used for something other than what they were designed for, like Tesco. I think on the whole, we tend to design for a specific program and are very mindful about the use of every square inch. This experience made me realize that there is a value to having flex or multipurpose space. Above all else though, it was seeing this crisis in person that underlined the importance of accessible design and adapting existing structures to make them more open to people with disabilities, the elderly as well as parents with young kids. 

Alec: Working at a repurposed mall got me thinking about how today we create complex, purpose-built structures that are specialized for a specific use. When these buildings outlive their intended purpose, as with many malls in America today, they are typically abandoned and fall into ruin. It was fascinating to see the ingenuity that went into retrofitting this former mall into a refugee center: storage pallets were used as partitions and furniture, stores were converted to bedrooms, the parking lot to outdoor space complete with a kids area and pizzeria. Designers should be thinking in the long-term, creating flexible spaces that can adapt to the needs of each community. There was no way to predict the sudden onslaught of people to this town, but there are steps designers can take to allow our built spaces to easily accommodate future uses.

Jack: I had a few particular moments at the train station where that was a major issue; The main bathroom facility was in the middle of a flight of stairs, which made it inaccessible to anyone with mobility limitations. In The US we have the ADA to mandate accessibility to a degree, but I think as architects, especially outside the US, we need to be more proactive about creating accessible & inclusive spaces even when not ‘required’ by any building codes.

I also would like to add that being able to see how things are done in other parts of the world is always enlightening, and could translate itself in one way or another back into the work we do as architects in our home environment. In that way, engaging in this kind of humanitarian work is a powerful way for architects and designers to add to their own personal life experiences, which we often subconsciously draw from in the work we do shaping the built environment.

Natalie: This experience showed me that every kind of skill is useful in humanitarian work and during a global crisis.  It’s important for architects to get involved not just because we possess applicable building and design skills, but because in a broader sense we can think spatially, be problem-solvers and project managers, all while imagining overlapping uses and functions. In school we were taught that architecture goes beyond aesthetics and can provide solutions to social and economic problems, and yet in our client-driven industry, it’s easy to lose sight of bigger issues. There are a few niche organizations involved in humanitarian architecture, but I would love to see more major architecture firms provide opportunities like this trip to their staff, or better yet, get involved in crisis-related building projects. Shigeru Ban is one of the few leading examples at the moment.  Large corporations aside, the individuals and grassroots organizations that we encountered on this trip accomplished so much in so little time. Similarly, we as architects can create a positive impact on the human environment provided we have the will to do so.

Thank you so much for taking your time and share your experiences with our readers. I can’t tell you enough what a powerful example you have set. Do you have final thoughts you’d like to share with our readers?

Alec: I want to thank Jenny, who has made this trip possible. It was without a doubt one of the most incredible and meaningful experiences of my life. Also thank you to Jack and Natalie for doing this with me, and Julia for putting this together so we can spread the word about how we can best support the Ukrainian people!

Jenny: This trip, while very short, left a lasting impression on me and very much helped personify all of the actual human cost of this war. I think in many ways the experience helped to bring our whole team closer as well. I am very happy that we decided to go and can’t wait to go back to help rebuild. 

Jack: A million other thoughts, but only one super badass woman who put this all together. Thanks to Jenny for figuring out how to make this happen! Truly one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I hope that we can continue to stay involved in rebuilding efforts as a team.

Natalie: Absolutely, a huge thanks to Jenny for not only presenting this opportunity, but also having the company cover the cost of travel for our team. As a leader, she is setting an incredible example for companies to not only donate finances, but to also donate their time to causes — some might say that commodity is more precious.  In doing so, she not only allowed us to have an individually impactful experience, but also one that was bonding for our team. Looking ahead, and reiterating Jack’s point, we plan to look for ways to be involved in a Ukrainian rebuilding project when the time comes.