Iwona Waszczykowska - The woman who puts her heart into her hands

February 24, 2022: Iwona Waszczykowska, EHS Country Manager, Siemens Poland, is full of disbelief. The threat has turned reality, with Russia attacking the Ukraine. Her neighboring country is dragged into a war. Nothing, nobody is safe any longer.

How can you help people who are suddenly plunged into a war? Where to start? Whoever knows Iwona knows about the key aspects of her personality: she is full of determination. She acts in a pragmatic way; she knows how to organize activities and work jointly with others. And she has the skill to convince and to lead people. If needed, she will round up her co-workers and will identify right away 20 volunteers who will drop everything to provide support. For Iwona and her team, this horrid event meant readiness to act 7/24.

“All of us had to react on the spot in whatever circumstances. War knows no hours and no rules. So, when a train with refugee Siemens workers came to a stop near the Polish border, I would give my Siemens colleagues a call, and they would come to pick up grounded people, provide temporary accommodation, and enable subsequent transportation in Poland. At any time, day or night.”

In parallel, jointly with volunteers she organizes the logistics for relief supplies transported in passenger trains from Warsaw to Kiev. Food items need to be bought, packaged, and taken to the trains. In order to ensure proper arrival of the goods at their destinations, the team in Warsaw also organizes pickup by their Ukrainian colleagues in the Ukraine. “After a few days, we ran out of funds – we had bought everything using our personal money. And the market for medication had dried up.” Where to go for additional funds and for medication? Iwona pushed the buttons: She contacted Maciej T. Zielinski, and Daniela Armano-Wallner – and received pledges for money. She contacted her colleagues at Corporate EHS - and the team organized the sourcing of urgently needed medication. In addition, it activated the central purchasing department which made sure that food, clothing, and hygiene articles went on their way quickly to Warsaw.

In the midst of daily challenges, it is always the individual fate which will touch Iwona. Fates such as that of a colleague from Sweden desperately looking for his sister and her seven-year-old daughter. They used to live in Mariupol, and there was no sign of life. Iwona supported the colleague in his plight by going through official platforms for missing persons and by activating her private network. “After about two weeks filled with anguish, his sister made contact. Both, mother and daughter, had succeeded to escape, and were on their way towards Poland.”

Providing a temporary home to refugees

Obviously, at this time many refugees cross the border and come to Warsaw. They need a safe place to stay. In Warsaw, shortly before the war, Siemens had moved to a new building – what about making a refugee home out of the previous, empty site in the city?

This was a major project from an organizational and logistics viewpoint, with many Siemens colleagues joining in the efforts: Agnieszka Kiepiela-Prus, Marta Benedyczak, K Katarzynam, Gracjana Jakubowska-Szarek, Arkadiusz Niemirka and many more.

Thanks to her organizing skills, Iwona was tasked with managing the furnishing of the rededicated building. This was not an easy task. Buying furniture for one’s home is one thing; “to purchase furniture for 150 people, however, takes you to quite another level. Beds, Ironing boards. Hair dryers … I had to think of all of this. Today, I would have the know-how to set up a hotel”, she remembers, smiling. In September 2022, the site opened; and everybody involved had a big neighborhood party.

Where did all the energy come from that Iwona needed for these achievements? The force that sustained her over months came from being affected personally. Among her personal experiences, she came to know a Ukrainian woman and her 14-year-old daughter:

“When that girl stood in front of me, I had to think of my own son. He is the same age. This girl had led a normal life until very recently; now here future has been taken away. And I asked myself, ‘what if this happened to my son, to my family’?”.

With time passing, a certain degree of normal starts to return to Iwona’s life. She still takes care of the needs of the refugees in the previous Siemens building. Looking back, Iwona would get involved again exactly the same way: “I think we have indeed done the best we could do.”

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