Marcel Gascon
kyiv (EFE).- From sunny Maspalomas to cold kyiv. It is the route that the ex-rally driver and ultramarathon fan Paco Molina has already done three times in a van to deliver to the Ukrainian people the humanitarian aid that his association, Karuna, gathers with funds from the Cabildo de Gran Canaria.
“This time I have brought two thousand kilos of surgical and medical material that we have delivered to the army,” Molina told EFE in the bar of his hotel in Kiev, hours before starting a return journey between two of the most distant points in Europe. That doesn’t seem to be a problem for the expilot.
“It takes me three or four days,” he says about the time he needs to complete the trip between the Ukrainian capital and Huelva, from where the Naviera Armas offers him a free ticket to return with his van to the island of Gran Canaria.
Asked about the hardness of such a long trip, the former rally driver does not seem to see distance as a problem, and highlights the pleasure it is for him to drive on the highways – “whenever possible with tolls, because they are safer”- European, especially those of Germany, “where there is no speed limit.”
Origins in the pandemic
Born in 1960 in the English town of Saint Albans, into a family of Spanish emigrants who returned to Algeciras shortly after, Molina arrived on the islands at the age of 18, where he dedicated himself to the hospitality industry and ran in competitions. such as the Gran Canaria Gravel Rally Championship.
Molina founded Karuna, a concept from Hinduism and Buddhism that can be translated as “compassion”, to help those who had lost their jobs in his adopted town, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, where he has also been a councilor.
San Bartolomé de Tirajana is in the south of the island of Gran Canaria and the well-known tourist town of Maspalomas belongs to this municipality.
“There is a lot of tourism and a lot of underground economy, and all the people who lost their jobs and did not have a contract were left without income or aid,” explains Molina in the Podil neighborhood of Kiev.
Karuna began distributing food and basic products to these people, and today it has about 70 volunteers who, with the help of the city council and the van with which Molina has already made three trips to Ukraine, provide service to about two thousand people in a situation of vulnerability or social exclusion.
From La Palma to the Ukrainian war
The Molina association also participated in humanitarian work to care for those affected by the eruption, in September 2021, of the La Palma volcano. A few months later, on February 24, the Russian army began its war of full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A few weeks later, Molina and one of his collaborators made their first trip in a van to western Ukraine, where they delivered humanitarian aid to a local NGO.
On his second trip, in April 2022, things went wrong when his Ukrainian partners ran out of gas money, forcing the Karuna founder to find his life. Bypassing language difficulties, Molina managed to make himself understood and deliver the cargo to the army.
refugee and co-pilot
To avoid these problems, the former pilot has established a direct connection with the Ukrainian armed forces, and this February he completed his third mission, arriving in the same capital accompanied by Rebeka Parshutina, a Ukrainian refugee living in Tenerife who has acted as co-pilot and of translator.
One of the things that has most impressed Molina from his last visit to Ukraine has been meeting and sharing food rations with the men and women in uniform who defend Ukraine in this war. The military environment reminds the founder of Karuna of his time in the military.
Seeing homeless people spending the cold Ukrainian winter on the streets and underpasses of Kiev has also made him see why Karuna has so much work in San Bartolomé de Tirajana, where many people from all over Spain settle without the possibility of rent or buy a house.
“There we have a warm climate throughout the year,” says Molina.
“This allows them to sleep on the beach, and since there is so much tourism and so many restaurants that have plenty of food, they also have more access to food than in other places,” the former pilot points out about a reality on the island that has been understood by more 5,000 kilometers away. EFE
