Those of us living in peace in the U.S. and other parts of the world can hardly imagine the horror of having our country invaded by a foreign power intent on occupying our homeland at any cost. Dr. Alison Thompson is an exception.
A lifelong volunteer who has devoted herself to helping people after international disasters including the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the tsunami that took an estimated 300,000 lives in Sri Lanka and India in 2004, and the earthquake that flattened much of Haiti in 2010, Thompson received the Presidential Lifetime Service Award from President Biden in 2022. Her non-profit, the Third Wave Volunteers, has grown to include more than 30,000 first responders to global emergencies.
The latest crisis to attract Thompson and her team is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Third Wave volunteers arrived during the very first week of the war. “At first, we were helping orphans, mothers and children in danger zones get to the safety of the borders,” Thompson said in an exclusive interview with me.
Ever since, the Third Wave volunteers have been training Ukrainian soldiers in Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), an advanced first aid course for medics working in war zones. “We’re teaching them how to extract an injured soldier with legs and arms of blown off from the red zone under fire by using tourniquets to stop the bleeding and things like that,” Thompson says. “We train the volunteers living in the aid centers on the front lines who are being targeted by Russian missiles, too. These days, we are focused on getting food, including fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as car tires, solar lights, and generators to the front-line villages.”
Early on in her work in Ukraine, Thompson met Oleg Holiev, a Ukrainian solder, and his family. He has been helping the Third Wave Volunteers ever since.
“Alison and her team from are amazing,” Holiev said in an exclusive interview with me. “When they first came here, people were so happy. They cried when Alison hugged and kissed them. We are very grateful. Alison is wonderful. She is such a strong, powerful woman, and she always brings love to everyone.”
Holiev’s family has since found accommodation in Poland. One day, when the war is over, he hopes to join the Third Wave Volunteers to help people in another country when they experience a crisis like the one his people are enduring today.
The Third Wave Volunteers also have assisted Vika Krotova, a young Ukrainian woman who founded a nonprofit called Kriana.4.5.0 at the start of the invasion. Thompson’s team provides Krotova with money, food, and anything else they might need, such as generators, cars, and medicines, so that villagers at the front lines can survive.
“We are very grateful for the support of our dear friends at the Third Wave,” Krotova wrote in an exclusive interview. “Not only for their help, but also for their compassion, love and humanity. Without them, thousands more Ukrainians would have died.”
When we spoke about volunteer efforts a few years back, Thompson said, “My life purpose is love, so being in a career to serve others and inspire others to join in the volunteer revolution fills me with a deep purpose that no other career could ever give me. Daily, I am surrounded by people who really need my help and love. Sometimes there are so many kids all trying to kiss and hug me at once that I fall over and roll on the ground laughing. Now that is working and living at the same time.”
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