After finishing a law degree in times of war, Magdalena saw the need to join the humanitarian sector – helping Ukrainian refugees, doing translation work between Polish and Ukrainian. With TSF, she works with integration centers in seven cities in Poland to distribute information.
16 January 2024
Magdalena, a TSF employee in Poland, explains how reliable information is useful to Ukrainian refugees, and how she makes sure she selects relevant information for people.
Meet Magdalena
Can you introduce yourself?
I'm Magda. I'm actually Victoria Magdana. I am a manager, a content manager at TSF, and I am Ukrainian and that's the reason why I really love this project and being involved in TSF and the work we are doing.
How did you come to work in the humanitarian sector?
When I graduated from university, the war had already started. I always thought I'd work as a lawyer, but when the war started there was a need to join the humanitarian sector and to do some humanitarian work.
Firstly I started with refugees transfers: there were buses from Lviv to Przemysl, the first city in Poland. I did some translation. Then, I met the manager of TSF's project, Hanna, and when the need for TSF's project arose to have a content manager, since she knew I'm a creative, she called me. She believed I would be a good fit. And thanks to her, I'm happy to to join the team and to do what I'm doing.
Can you talk about the context of the project that you are working on?
Of course. The main thing this project does is information dissemination. We have televisions that are located in integration centers in seven cities in Poland. People are mainly coming there either to get humanitarian aid, financial aid, or to integrate with the local society in Poland.
We place the information, we update it, and thus people can use it without worrying that it will be a fraud or being confused.
Those people are Ukrainians who fled from Ukraine because of war. What we're providing is information that might be interesting for them, that is needed and useful. We do it because we understand that, when you come to a different country - and most of these people come from Central and East Ukraine, so they don't know the Polish language as well as Western Ukrainians know because they're close to the border -, it's really difficult to get information, to assess it, to process it... And, the most important, to know which information is true and trustworthy, and which is not.
So we do it for them. We place the information, we update it, and thus people can use it without worrying that it will be a fraud or being confused.
If I wasn't involved in TSF and in this project, there would be no chance that I could help those people, that many people, in this particular way. So, for me, it's like fulfilling my human obligation to help the people who I need to help.
Can you explain what you do on a daily basis?
I'm the content manager. That means I'm creating the content, but to create the content, you firstly need to understand what people need. That involves conversations with central managers, with people; that involves scrolling telegram channels, Facebook, to know what people are talking about.
And then secondly, we need to know the information. So I'm searching for it; and because I search in the same sources people use, I need to verify it.
The next step that I'm doing after everything is done, and I have a pile of information that people need to know, of answers to the questions that people have, is that I need to make it look nice on the presentation - and that is where the creativity comes into play, and what I really like about my work as well.
What is the biggest challenge you face?
The biggest challenge would be to find the information that is really useful for people, because the world is a changing one, so information is changing as well - but not everything is updated.
What motivates you?
There are two main things that I love the most in my work.
First of all it's the team, the different managers. They're awesome, really great people. If you work in an environment where you feel bad, it's unpleasant, but if you feel good, that's amazing. The second thing is that I'm allowed to be creative. That's everything I need.
Do you have any feedback on the project?
Each time we come to centers - because I communicate with center managers each week -, we do hear that they are thankful to us for doing what we are doing. Because we are not only helping people who are fleeing the war; we are also helping the center managers to do their work. Because creating the presentation and sharing the information helps them to help people.
"Sharing the information helps [center managers] to help people."
