Another vehicle will soon be on its way to Kherson, Bonn's solidarity partnership city in southern Ukraine. The flatbed truck, also known as a double cab, was handed over to the German-Ukrainian Blue-Yellow Cross Association on Monday, January 22, 2024. Tamara Vukovic, Head of the Bonn branch of the Cologne-based association, received the vehicle at the SWB depot in Friesdorf. In the next few days, the it will be transported from Cologne to Kherson via the association.
The vehicle was organized as part of the project "Improving civil protection in municipal partnerships with Ukraine". The project is being implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Other cooperation partners are the German Association of Cities (DST), the German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB), the German County Association (LKT) and the Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW). The City of Bonn is also participating in the project, thereby supplementing its solidarity partnership with Kherson, which has been in place since 2023.
In this GIZ project, procurement packages on various topics, such as building yard equipment, medical equipment and vehicles, are bundled, procured by GIZ the and delivered to the participating German municipalities. Bonn's solidarity partner city of Kherson has identified two vehicles as its most urgent need. Bonn therefore received a flatbed truck as the first vehicle. GIZ has yet to deliver another vehicle to the City of Bonn.
"In view of the ongoing attacks on Ukraine, we are doing everything we can to support our partner city. There is still a great need for vehicles there, and we hope to make a small contribution to improving the situation on the ground with this flatbed truck. We would especially like to thank the Blue-Yellow Cross for their excellent cooperation and great support with this transport," says Stefan Wagner, Head of the Department of International Affairs and Global Sustainability. This department is responsible for the City of Bonn's solidarity partnership.
"For us as the Blue-Yellow Cross Association, cooperation with German municipalities in the context of city partnerships with Ukraine is very important. This is because we can complement each other with our support options and thus provide even more targeted assistance to the people in Ukraine in their difficult situation. We are particularly pleased about the solidarity partnership between Bonn and Kherson, which was established last year, because the city on the front line is suffering particularly badly from the consequences of the terrible war at the hands of Russia," says Tamara Vukovic, Head of the Bonn branch of the Blue-Yellow Cross.
Background to the solidarity partnership
On February 9, 2023, the Bonn City Council unanimously decided to establish a solidarity partnership with the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which had been severely affected by the war. Since then, the City of Bonn has launched the donation campaign "Bonn helps Kherson" together with the Bonn-based aid organization Help - Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe. More than 100,000 euros have already been donated under the "Bonn helps Kherson" campaign. In the summer of 2023, three vehicles from the Bonn fire department and the municipal waste management company Bonnorange were also donated to Kherson: a crew transport vehicle, a waste collection vehicle and a street cleaning vehicle. In addition, the City of Bonn donated 144 computers to the Kherson city administration and supported a large donations-in-kind campaign with the Bonn Central Warehouse for Donations in Kind (ZeSaBa) to help after the Kachowka dam burst.
Further information can also be found at https://international.bonn.de/kherson and on the GIZ project at https://www.giz.de/de/weltweit/131255.html (opens in a new tab)