Volunteers have launched “Murakhi,” an online trading platform where it will be possible to buy and sell second-hand items with all profits from the transactions going to the aid of the army, the wounded and refugees from the war-torn areas of Eastern Ukraine.
So far, the website is only accepting items, but it will be possible to make purchases on it beginning in early November, reports Ukrainian tech blog AIN.UA.
The platform works using announcements in which people can sell things they do not need. The user sets the price of the item and a tariff is automatically added to that amount by the operator. Buyers will receive their purchases at the nearest branch of Novaya Pochta, an e-commerce delivery network, and will pay in cash.
The volunteers will distribute the funds they receive monthly among partner philanthropic organizations depending on their needs. They also promise on the website to publish regular accounts of these organizations and how they spend the money they receive – equipment for the army, medicine for the wounded, food for the refugees.
The initiator of the project was founder and CEO of the Studio7 marketing agency Dmitry Fedorenko. Five volunteers began working on Murakhi during its creation and about 50 people from various companies and organizations have joined in the effort since then. The Maidan revolution unites all of the volunteers, Fedorenko said. Businessmen with a civic conscience are supporting his effort, he added, because they want to help their country.
“Novaya Pochta will deliver the goods and credit our accounts. Legal services will be provided by the firm Alexeev, Boyarchukov and Partners. Studio7 digital production has assumed responsibility for web development and programming. The Internet company Cosmonova will help host the website. Toy Pictures video production company will film an advertisement for it using a script by Leo Burnett creative director Tatiana Fedorenko. Andrei Shevchenko, a well-known designer and calligrapher from Berdyansk, created the logo. Animator Yury Motrich, creative director Lilia Lylyk and composer Roman Kievsky created an animated video together,” Murakhi representative Tatiana Mokrenko told AIN.UA.
The number of philanthropic projects on the Ukrainian Internet has increased as the situation has become more tense in Ukraine. Internet developers are helping the army and refugees, just as businessmen and other citizens are. These activists are setting up numerous websites to send aid to the fighters and their fellow countrymen in distress.
For example, Anatoly Mazarchuk, a volunteer from Zhitomir, created the website Heroes of the ATO (1) that collects information about wounded soldiers in need of assistance. In June, activists from the We Will Save Ukraine movement launched a website to aid refugees from the ATO zone.
(1) ATO (“Anti-Terrorist Operation”) is the name given by the Ukrainian government to the operation aiming to combat the insurgency in Eastern Ukraine.
