British actor Mark Strong on rebuilding Ukrainian schools and the dangers of compassion fatigue

"We just need to keep going and remind people that there are people who need our help."

Transcript

00:00 The only thing I could really think of and come up with is that Edmund Burke quote.

00:05 You know, the 1780s, he was a politician.

00:08 He said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

00:13 And I think that's incredibly relevant.

00:29 I was asked to play in a charity football match.

00:34 And I was told that a lot of ex-arsenal players like Robert Pires and Klici and guys like that would be playing.

00:41 So I have to confess, my first enthusiasm for the match was the fact that I would get to meet all these legends who I'd grown up supporting.

00:49 But then when there, I bumped into Shevchenko, who had actually played in a charity match a couple of years before for Soccer Aid.

00:59 And he's a very lovely man and we became good friends.

01:03 And then I met Zinchenko, who's another Ukrainian footballer who plays for Arsenal.

01:07 And realized while I was there over the course of a couple of days that we were training for the match,

01:12 you know, that the whole thing was being done for United 24, which is President Zelensky's fundraising arm.

01:17 And it was in aid of raising money for Ukraine.

01:21 And that kind of opened my eyes to that.

01:23 And then I got talking to the guys that were organizing it.

01:25 And they asked me for my help.

01:27 And it's very difficult when someone asks you for help to say no, frankly.

01:32 Well, I decided I'm going to try and raise $60,000 for a school in Uman, in the Cherkasy district.

01:39 It's called the Dmitry Shchivsky School or Lyceum.

01:43 And it has 327 pupils.

01:46 They need a bomb shelter, you know, which is insane when you think that you need to say that sentence,

01:51 that a school needs a bomb shelter.

01:53 But it's about two and a half hours from Kiev.

01:56 And in order to enable them to study, this bomb shelter will be incredibly useful

02:01 because they can go there should they be in danger.

02:05 It allows them to continue their education.

02:07 So that's something specific that I'm trying to raise money for right now.

02:11 [END]

02:14 [BLANK_AUDIO]