Dr. Alison ThompsonDr. Alison Thompson .The images she describes are raw and stark.A Ukrainian soldier, his genitals cut off with a knife, being dragged through the streets with ropes by the Russians.Pregnant women brutally raped, beaten and left for dead. Children too, young children, violated in front of their families with candle sticks.The madness of Putin's war and everything that comes with it, has overtaken a once peaceful nation.And yet for, Dr. Alison Thompson, founder of Third Wave volunteers, there is still hope, there is still love, there is still optimism.Thompson is relaxing in her home in Florida when I reach her by phone."I just finished cleaning the garage," she says in a thick Aussie accent, just days after returning from a six-month stint in Ukraine with Third Wave. Her husband, a Cuban American, is out walking the dog.A well deserved R&R for a woman who has dedicated her life to heading to disaster zones and wars to help others.According to the Third Wave website, Thompson has volunteered numerous ways — running large refugee camps, field hospitals and resilience command centers in natural disasters around the world for the past 22 years, including the Syrian, Afghan, Venezuelan and Ukraine refugee crisis.Once called the "Doyenne of Disaster" in an article by Aventura magazine, when she is not out saving the world, she is busy founding humanitarian organizations.Among her many awards and accomplishments:Appointed as the first official Ambassador to the Haitian Ministry of Environment, where she helped Haiti ratify the Paris Agreement;Appointed to the Advisory Board of the United Nations Chaplains Association;Won the Governor's Hurricane Service Agency award, the Hope Prize at TEDX Talk, the Dr. Martin Luther King humanitarian award, the Rethink Energy Florida award and was selected 2019 Woman of Peace;Third Wave rescue teams delivered over 1.8 million N95 Covid masks to 50 states, including the Navajo tribal nations, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Peru and Haiti.While her altruist journey began in earnest in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York City — “I learned real fast there is room for volunteers with or without experience in disaster relief,” she once said — the name Third Wave actually has a different origin."How the name actually came about was from the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka," she explained. "The first wave destroyed the village and the train and everyone climbed on top and it was pretty bad, but it was OK."The second wave in that village was a 60-foot-wave that took people three miles. The whole village went three miles inland, and it killed 300,000 in 13 countries. But in that village, it was 3,000. Oh my God."And the third wave, I asked?"The third wave is all the volunteers — thousands of volunteers flooded in from all over the world, ready to help," said the former math teacher from Sydney, Australia."And you didn't have to have a medical degree. You can give out water, you can give out solar lights, you can look after kids, you know, peel the carrots, there's always a spot.While other big aid organizations such as The Red Cross pull in millions of dollars in donations, Thompson has placed her focus on "volunteering" — something that is just as important, she says.Switching back to Ukraine, she describes the desperate straits of the Ukrainian people, and the heavy cost it is taking on a nation greatly outnumbered and outgunned."Now, we are getting a hundred men every four days, and these are fishermen and farmers and real estate guys and baby food salesmen."And they get this uniform and this gun and they're sent to the front lines and there's hundreds dying every day. And they've got families and kids."How are they countering that, I ask?For starters, training the civilian soldiers on combat medics, so they can save lives."We have a good reputation," she says. "We're all about just getting in there fast and helping everyone and providing everything that's needed ... a loving action kind of thing."In the beginning, she loaded up on doctors for Ukraine, taking 20 because of special needs kids. But that just proved too complicated. She reduced that to four-to six doctors, and, she learned to just take women."We have thousands of nurses ... we have these little hearts on our hats and we've been in every secret war room and all over."But whenever we had guys with us, they would be pushed up against a wall, with a machine gun, (accused of being) a spy, whatever, you know. So we learned to just take the women."Third Wave is also taking much-needed food and supplies to front line villages that have been heavily scarred by war."They've just been recaptured and they've been with the Russians for months," she says."We get $2,000 each time and we go shopping, and we shop for 200 people and then we get vans and load them up, and we have special security (escorts), and go into these grey zones, where it's kind of scary."You don't know if there's a Russian hiding up the tree or if they're hiding somewhere else."There's rockets going off and that, but the people, they're just hugging you and crying in our arms and they're just, they're the 80- and 90-year-olds that just couldn't leave. They're like, where are we gonna go?"Yet, despite all this, Thompson still senses a renewed spirit amid the devastation."The thing is, I've never felt the world come together like this since September 11th, 2001."And even though it's 10 Russians to one Ukrainian, you feel that the whole world behind them, bringing in the food and weapons or whatever they're supporting. So you feel that love pushing and pushing. Yeah."They're holding firm because they're fishermen and farmers and that's their actual river and their land," she adds. "Whereas, on the other side, the 18-year-old Russian kid that's fighting, it's not his land and there's no one behind, supporting him."Military gains in the south have also sparked hopes that Ukrainian forces could push the Russians back into Crimea, and possibly retake that area. Russia has sent more troops south, to stop this from happening, of course."They're holding on, holding on and it's just beautiful," she says. "Even the fashion houses have turned to making flak jackets and it flashes back to the movies I saw in World War I and II, when everybody comes together."And if you are not in the front lines of the war, you volunteer, you drive people around all day, even if it's just in the town that's not being bombed. Everybody's got their part and it's a beautiful coming together."She also credits the many Ukrainian and expat troops that protect them through thick and thin."We got a full battalion, you know, they're all US troops and Canadian troops and UK troops, and they're all really great," she says. "They're offering great tactical training to the Ukrainians, and there's a lot of them on the frontline."But when I hear on the news that another American was killed, I wonder who the next one will be. Will he be Canadian, or will he be Australian?"I ask her how she handles it all ... the horror ... the suffering ... all that stuff."Well, I'm used to it from things like September 11th. It was hard at first, but I've developed this thing — just be really present right now."Inspired to help at Ground Zero, she collected legs and arms in the wreckage, washed out the eyes of those still alive, gave CPR and did whatever she could.For the next six days, she lived on the street, existing on two hours of sleep each night."I'm having a great conversation with you tonight," she said. "I'm going out later with my girlfriends. We're gonna have Thai food. I'm gonna be present. Then the next morning, I'll be with a rape victim."So if you just stay in that moment, you don't look back and you don't think about it. You just stay in each present, and that's how it works."That's how it had to develop over 22 years, it doesn't come overnight, but that's how I have to do it, you know? Otherwise I would be a nutcase, I guess," she says.She adds one final thing, before our convo ends — how to help."People ask me, how can I help? How can I help besides, you know, the donations I say, look, even if you can't donate, keep the story alive."If you see it online, social media, reshare, reshare. We have to keep the story out, the civilian war. It's a genocide, they're being massacred."She recounts the images I opened this column with — things which seem almost indescribable in their cruelty."It's getting crazy, you know, and we've gotta stop it," she says. "I wish we could do more."Thompson will do more — she will return to Ukraine after a week's rest.For those who wish to donate to Third Wave, or possibly to volunteer, go online at https://thirdwavevolunteers.com/
Dr. Alison ThompsonDr. Alison Thompson .The images she describes are raw and stark.A Ukrainian soldier, his genitals cut off with a knife, being dragged through the streets with ropes by the Russians.Pregnant women brutally raped, beaten and left for dead. Children too, young children, violated in front of their families with candle sticks.The madness of Putin's war and everything that comes with it, has overtaken a once peaceful nation.And yet for, Dr. Alison Thompson, founder of Third Wave volunteers, there is still hope, there is still love, there is still optimism.Thompson is relaxing in her home in Florida when I reach her by phone."I just finished cleaning the garage," she says in a thick Aussie accent, just days after returning from a six-month stint in Ukraine with Third Wave. Her husband, a Cuban American, is out walking the dog.A well deserved R&R for a woman who has dedicated her life to heading to disaster zones and wars to help others.According to the Third Wave website, Thompson has volunteered numerous ways — running large refugee camps, field hospitals and resilience command centers in natural disasters around the world for the past 22 years, including the Syrian, Afghan, Venezuelan and Ukraine refugee crisis.Once called the "Doyenne of Disaster" in an article by Aventura magazine, when she is not out saving the world, she is busy founding humanitarian organizations.Among her many awards and accomplishments:Appointed as the first official Ambassador to the Haitian Ministry of Environment, where she helped Haiti ratify the Paris Agreement;Appointed to the Advisory Board of the United Nations Chaplains Association;Won the Governor's Hurricane Service Agency award, the Hope Prize at TEDX Talk, the Dr. Martin Luther King humanitarian award, the Rethink Energy Florida award and was selected 2019 Woman of Peace;Third Wave rescue teams delivered over 1.8 million N95 Covid masks to 50 states, including the Navajo tribal nations, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Peru and Haiti.While her altruist journey began in earnest in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York City — “I learned real fast there is room for volunteers with or without experience in disaster relief,” she once said — the name Third Wave actually has a different origin."How the name actually came about was from the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka," she explained. "The first wave destroyed the village and the train and everyone climbed on top and it was pretty bad, but it was OK."The second wave in that village was a 60-foot-wave that took people three miles. The whole village went three miles inland, and it killed 300,000 in 13 countries. But in that village, it was 3,000. Oh my God."And the third wave, I asked?"The third wave is all the volunteers — thousands of volunteers flooded in from all over the world, ready to help," said the former math teacher from Sydney, Australia."And you didn't have to have a medical degree. You can give out water, you can give out solar lights, you can look after kids, you know, peel the carrots, there's always a spot.While other big aid organizations such as The Red Cross pull in millions of dollars in donations, Thompson has placed her focus on "volunteering" — something that is just as important, she says.Switching back to Ukraine, she describes the desperate straits of the Ukrainian people, and the heavy cost it is taking on a nation greatly outnumbered and outgunned."Now, we are getting a hundred men every four days, and these are fishermen and farmers and real estate guys and baby food salesmen."And they get this uniform and this gun and they're sent to the front lines and there's hundreds dying every day. And they've got families and kids."How are they countering that, I ask?For starters, training the civilian soldiers on combat medics, so they can save lives."We have a good reputation," she says. "We're all about just getting in there fast and helping everyone and providing everything that's needed ... a loving action kind of thing."In the beginning, she loaded up on doctors for Ukraine, taking 20 because of special needs kids. But that just proved too complicated. She reduced that to four-to six doctors, and, she learned to just take women."We have thousands of nurses ... we have these little hearts on our hats and we've been in every secret war room and all over."But whenever we had guys with us, they would be pushed up against a wall, with a machine gun, (accused of being) a spy, whatever, you know. So we learned to just take the women."Third Wave is also taking much-needed food and supplies to front line villages that have been heavily scarred by war."They've just been recaptured and they've been with the Russians for months," she says."We get $2,000 each time and we go shopping, and we shop for 200 people and then we get vans and load them up, and we have special security (escorts), and go into these grey zones, where it's kind of scary."You don't know if there's a Russian hiding up the tree or if they're hiding somewhere else."There's rockets going off and that, but the people, they're just hugging you and crying in our arms and they're just, they're the 80- and 90-year-olds that just couldn't leave. They're like, where are we gonna go?"Yet, despite all this, Thompson still senses a renewed spirit amid the devastation."The thing is, I've never felt the world come together like this since September 11th, 2001."And even though it's 10 Russians to one Ukrainian, you feel that the whole world behind them, bringing in the food and weapons or whatever they're supporting. So you feel that love pushing and pushing. Yeah."They're holding firm because they're fishermen and farmers and that's their actual river and their land," she adds. "Whereas, on the other side, the 18-year-old Russian kid that's fighting, it's not his land and there's no one behind, supporting him."Military gains in the south have also sparked hopes that Ukrainian forces could push the Russians back into Crimea, and possibly retake that area. Russia has sent more troops south, to stop this from happening, of course."They're holding on, holding on and it's just beautiful," she says. "Even the fashion houses have turned to making flak jackets and it flashes back to the movies I saw in World War I and II, when everybody comes together."And if you are not in the front lines of the war, you volunteer, you drive people around all day, even if it's just in the town that's not being bombed. Everybody's got their part and it's a beautiful coming together."She also credits the many Ukrainian and expat troops that protect them through thick and thin."We got a full battalion, you know, they're all US troops and Canadian troops and UK troops, and they're all really great," she says. "They're offering great tactical training to the Ukrainians, and there's a lot of them on the frontline."But when I hear on the news that another American was killed, I wonder who the next one will be. Will he be Canadian, or will he be Australian?"I ask her how she handles it all ... the horror ... the suffering ... all that stuff."Well, I'm used to it from things like September 11th. It was hard at first, but I've developed this thing — just be really present right now."Inspired to help at Ground Zero, she collected legs and arms in the wreckage, washed out the eyes of those still alive, gave CPR and did whatever she could.For the next six days, she lived on the street, existing on two hours of sleep each night."I'm having a great conversation with you tonight," she said. "I'm going out later with my girlfriends. We're gonna have Thai food. I'm gonna be present. Then the next morning, I'll be with a rape victim."So if you just stay in that moment, you don't look back and you don't think about it. You just stay in each present, and that's how it works."That's how it had to develop over 22 years, it doesn't come overnight, but that's how I have to do it, you know? Otherwise I would be a nutcase, I guess," she says.She adds one final thing, before our convo ends — how to help."People ask me, how can I help? How can I help besides, you know, the donations I say, look, even if you can't donate, keep the story alive."If you see it online, social media, reshare, reshare. We have to keep the story out, the civilian war. It's a genocide, they're being massacred."She recounts the images I opened this column with — things which seem almost indescribable in their cruelty."It's getting crazy, you know, and we've gotta stop it," she says. "I wish we could do more."Thompson will do more — she will return to Ukraine after a week's rest.For those who wish to donate to Third Wave, or possibly to volunteer, go online at https://thirdwavevolunteers.com/
