A man is helping people in Ukraine by booking rooms in Kyiv on Airbnb. Mark Haggis, a teacher from Louth, Lincolnshire said he first saw the idea to book Airbnb rooms in Kyiv on Facebook.
Mark, who is part Ukrainian, plans on booking more rooms in other parts of Ukraine to help residents there as well. The idea to rent Airbnb's in Ukraine circulated online last week and so far 61,000 bookings have been made, reports Grimsby Live.
He said: "Like most people, I was horrified with what's happened. Innocent people are being forced from their homes through no fault of their own due to a bad man, and I just felt like I really wanted to do something and make a difference. My grandad was from Ukraine and he came over after World War II.
"He fought against Nazi Germany and he came to live in England to help rebuild the country. If he was able to give up his own country and help Britain in the fight, then we should be doing something similar and helping them.
"It's quite personal to me, this War, and I've got family who live over there. Although I've never visited the country and I've never been in contact with the family I've got there, but it still feels like this is part of me.
"I've done one of those DNA tests and 40 percent of my DNA comes from that region, so it's very personal to me, what's happening. I just wanted to make a difference and try and help these people.
"Even though I don't know these people, what they're going through, it's not right, and something needs to be done. World leaders are stalling because they're worried about what the implications will be if we were to start fighting alongside them, so we're in a catch-22 situation where we want to help, but we're limited because of what could happen, so it's down to ordinary people like myself to do what we can.
"I'd seen on Facebook that people were doing something similar so I thought, 'I'm going to do that', and I just went on to Airbnb straight away and looked in Kyiv for different properties, found one, and booked it. I messaged the guy, Sergey, his name is, to wish him well and say I hope him and his family are safe.
"He did reply to me to say thank you and that he's trying his best, and that he hopes one day we can actually meet up and I can visit the city. I would like to do that but I just don't know when that's going to happen."
Mark said he plans to book more rooms via Airbnb to help residents in other parts of Ukraine.
He continued: "I've just booked the one for the time being but I am going to book more because I've heard about the different areas that are suffering at the minute in the north and east of the country, so I'm going to look for those. I just feel that, because I'm part Ukrainian, I have a moral duty to do what I can to help, although I've never met these people, I don't know them, I just feel that if something similar was happening in this country, you'd want people to help as much as possible.
"The money is going direct to people there who need it, they get access to it straight away. Their jobs have all ended and they can't work any more, so they've not got any income coming in, but they still need to buy food and they want their everyday lives to continue as much as possible - but it's difficult when they don't have the money.
"So it was a way to get the money to them faster. You can make these donations to charity but you don't know how long it takes for the money to get to them. This way, they get it directly."
You can book a room in Ukraine via Airbnb here.
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