The Soft Thing That Held the War Back

The Mattress That Wasn’t Just a Mattress

Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk region, 2023.

photo credit CNN

It wasn’t the mattress. The math behind it was three fewer painkillers and one less worry. And somewhere in eastern Ukraine, a grandmother recalculated survival with quiet relief.

The cold cut through our layers as we organised the aid delivery. Near the back of the truck, I noticed her – a grandmother in a worn coat, standing patiently until the crowd dispersed.

Her hands, rough from years of work, trembled slightly as she approached. I got my staff to translate what she was saying. “Please”, she said quietly, “my granddaughter has been sleeping on a school gym floor since the shelling began. She’s developed back pain.”

No tears. No tantrums. Just the simple, crushing reality of war: a child who needed something soft between her body and the cold tile.

She nodded solemnly when we loaded the mattress, blankets, winter clothes, and kitchen sets onto her cart. “Dyakuyu”, she murmured. “Thank you”, nothing more. But in her eyes, you could see the calculation; this would mean three fewer painkillers needed this week, one less worry in the endless arithmetic of survival.

That soft thing — a mattress — wouldn’t stop the bombs or mend the politics. But it would hold the war back for one night, just enough for a child to sleep in dignity.

No plea for food or medicine. Just this: “Something soft between her granddaughter and the war.”

That night, somewhere in the chaos of artillery and frozen darkness, a child slept without the ground gnawing at her ribs.

This is what they don’t teach in aid work: The most powerful interventions aren’t always the largest – sometimes it’s about solving the right small problem at the right time. Dignity isn’t delivered in bulk. It’s handed over one trembling pair of hands at a time.

That mattress didn’t end the war. But for one girl, it meant dignity. A reminder: Humanity isn’t in the supplies—it’s in the act of handing them over.

The Arithmetic of Survival

Monguno, Borno State—2017.

Here’s the equation they don’t teach in humanitarian handbooks:

Displacement + Desperation = _________.

Most assume the answer is chaos. But in the choking dust of Boko Haram’s insurgency, I learnt a brutal truth. Systems failed. People don’t.

• Community Kitchens: Displaced women pooled scraps of maize and firewood to feed orphans. No NGOs, no budgets—just “If we don’t, who will?"

• Human Ambulances: Neighbours sprinting through gunfire and the aftermath of a suicide bomber with the wounded strapped to their backs.

  
  

This wasn’t resilience. This wasn’t kindness. This was love with its sleeves rolled up. This was collective defiance. “If we don’t, who will?” became the liturgy of the forsaken. A lesson etched in my bones: “Resilience starts at the last mile—or it doesn’t start at all.”

The Invisible Heroes

Meet the architects of impossible hope:

► The Man Who Walked on Screws

Four complex fractures. Four surgeries. Medical teams insisted his rehabilitation required rest. Yet there he was - from Lviv to Dnipro, Kharkiv to Odesa - walking sites where others hesitated to go.

I remember him in Kharkiv last winter, leg brace visible through his trousers, taking assessment trips in villages where infrastructure had been methodically destroyed.

“You can survive three weeks without food," he reminded his team. “Three days without water.

But dignity? That disappears the first time a mother can’t wash her child’s face. Or the bedridden elderly and geriatric patients lack access to water/hygiene kits.

No grand speeches. Just a stubborn commitment to reach every accessible community with the fundamentals: clean water, basic sanitation, and the means to maintain human dignity amidst chaos.

► The Russian Humanitarian

A Leningrad-born, a place known today as St. Petersburg, a professional who chose to remain when others fled. He is one of my staff members who took extraordinary risks to remain in Ukraine, supporting vulnerable populations.

Without contract guarantees, driven by pure conviction, he began by distributing his own household items from his apartment to displaced families.

His professional journey was already remarkable (starting as a UN Volunteer, then subcontracted to IOM), but the crisis revealed his true character. Daily, relentlessly, he:

• Organised strategies and plans to ensure that the affected communities on the front line received aid.

• Planned logistics for frontline deliveries

• Pushed systems to prioritize “last mile” support

  
  

“They’re not ‘beneficiaries’,” he’d insist. “These people deserve dignity and proper NFIs to complement their shelter, whether in a bunker or fleeing between them.” No theatrics. Just a humanitarian proving that true professionalism shows up when the stakes are highest.

These men don’t have Wikipedia pages. But in the silence between gunfire, they’re the reason hope still breathes.

The Quiet Truth About Change

Here’s what no one admits: big systems fail.

The records will show the metric tonnes delivered. The reports will list the beneficiaries reached.

But here’s what only field workers see:

• In Donetsk and Kharkiv regions: Pallets of humanitarian aid such as solar lamps, blankets, hygiene kits, and winterisation kits dispatched through the inter-agency convoy await "proper distribution,” while affected populations, mostly the elderly and PWD, who were not evacuated or rather refused to move, burned textbooks for warmth.

• In IDP camps in Borno, a child’s death certificate reads “malnutrition” beside a warehouse of fortified peanut paste.

I’ve seen warehouses of expired medicine rot while patients died. Watched IDPs’ tents collapse under bureaucracy (500 emergency shelters built and never used until they collapsed in Banki, Bama LGA of Borno State). I have seen non-food items kept locked while families burned furniture for warmth or cooking food.

But I’ve also seen:

• A boy in a camp teaches others to read by tracing letters in the dirt.

• A street vendor fed homeless kids with his “extra” bread (there was never extra).

The Lesson That Chooses You: Systems measure. People save. The boy with his dirt alphabet wasn’t implementing a program; he was being human. That’s where change lives.

Your Rebellion Starts Here (Should You Choose to Accept It)

Forget “changing the world”. Start smaller:

The Forbidden Kindness. Next time you see a waiter exhausted by life:

• Tip triple

• Write on the receipt: “Tonight, the universe is rooting for you."

The Paperwork Rebellion: “Lose” one mattress from inventory. Let the bureaucrats rage while someone’s child finally sleeps soundly.

The Name That Defies Labels. When you hear "beneficiary", correct them: “Her name is Olena. She prefers tea with two sugars."

Gandhi only told half the story. Yes, your actions become habits. But habits become history when they’re forged in defiance.

So tell me, friend: which small act will you weaponise today?

(The comments are yours – share your “forbidden kindness” and start a riot of compassion.)

Because in the end, changing the world doesn’t start with revolution—it starts with one mattress, one gesture, one ripple.