NGO Coordination Hub — Warsaw, PKiN
When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Warsaw became one of the largest reception points in Europe within days. Polish civil society mobilised immediately — and for several months, the Palace of Culture and Science became a nerve centre for that response. SWB was there from the start, coordinating from PKiN while also supporting operations at Warsaw Central Station and at the borders.
The Context
The scale of displacement in the first weeks of the invasion was staggering. Poland received over a million Ukrainian refugees within the first ten days. Warsaw Central Station — Warszawa Centralna — became one of the most visible frontlines of the response almost immediately. Up to 2,000 Ukrainians were arriving per day in the first weeks, and by March and April, volunteer organisations at Warsaw’s stations were serving up to 10,000 refugees daily. The station was transformed: information points, medical care, food, SIM cards, accommodation coordination, and hundreds of volunteers working around the clock.
At the borders, a parallel effort was underway — NGOs and individual volunteers meeting people as they crossed, providing immediate assistance, transport, and onward referrals. The response was largely coordinated and run by independent volunteers and NGOs, with municipal and provincial authorities supporting alongside. The sheer volume of need meant that coordination between organisations was not optional — without it, the response risked becoming chaotic and duplicative.
Sailors Without Borders at PKiN
SWB joined the coordination hub at PKiN from its opening in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. For several months — until the team relocated to Lublin to begin implementing the Safe Haven project — SWB’s Warsaw operations were run from this space, alongside other organisations including Other Space Foundation, Uniters Foundation, Reuters, and many others working across the full spectrum of the humanitarian response.
From PKiN, SWB supported operations at Warsaw Central Station — one of the main points of first contact for arriving refugees — helping with logistics, information, and onward coordination. SWB volunteers were also active at the Polish-Ukrainian border in the same period, supporting the initial reception effort as people crossed into Poland.
The work done at PKiN itself was the infrastructure that made all of this possible: writing grant applications and project proposals, coordinating logistics, sharing contacts and resources with partner organisations, and planning the larger operations that would follow. Safe Haven — the project that would house over 100 Ukrainian refugees in Lublin — was conceived and written here, in the early weeks of the crisis, before SWB had the capacity to implement it.
What This Work Was
Coordination work produces no dramatic photographs and no single moment of rescue. But the field operations that followed — the convoys to Ukraine, Safe Haven, the border support — were built on the foundation laid in those months at PKiN. It belongs in the record.
For information about SWB’s current work, visit our Actions page or contact us at contact@sailorswithoutborders.org.
