Former Tauranga mayor Tenby Powell has pushed aside a cushy retirement for putting his life on the line, in the quest for a better tomorrow.

words Hayley Barnett

Tenby Powell arrives at a busy Mount Maunganui beachside café for our interview sporting a military-issue patrol pack emblazoned with the letters POWELL, and his A-negative blood type, across the back. As he charges through the crowd wearing his aviators, black Kiwi K.A.R.E T-shirt and hiking boots, I get a much better idea of what it is that drew Tenby to war-torn Ukraine. This is a military man who knows his place in the world, and it’s not sipping lattes on the beach.

That said, he politely insists on buying me a coffee and settles in to explain why exactly he’s so set on putting himself in harm’s way when he could be, well, sipping lattes on the beach.

“I was like many of us watching the television in February 2022, aghast at what was happening,” he says. “The immorality of this war is just extraordinary. I couldn't sit back and do nothing.”

At 63, with more than 30 years of military experience under his belt, Tenby knew what to expect going into a situation like this. He contacted an old colleague in Poland and ended up joining him on an aid mission into Ukraine. But, even as a former colonel, he was surprised at how big a need there was.

“The volume and weight of humanitarian need affected me so much,” explains Tenby. “I wanted to create a Kiwi-led organisation that would be highly effective and respected.”

And so he came up with Kiwi K.A.R.E, which stands for Kiwi Aid and Refugee Evacuation, and headed back into Ukraine later on in 2022.

A few years before this, Tenby had been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. One would think a cancer diagnosis would steer a person away from stressful situations. I suppose you could argue that it did. He had stepped down from his mayoral gig here in Tauranga, which lasted just 15 months. But as soon as he’d quit to focus on his health, he just as quickly took off to Ukraine, dodging bullets to provide aid to civilians.

Since 2022, he has spent at total of 13 months there, enough time to “get stuff done”.

Today Tenby, with the help of his team, has delivered many hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian and medical aid to the country, and conducted numerous evacuations for people escaping dangerous areas.

Late last year, seven St John ambulances were imported into Ukraine, with six now working under the control of frontline medical units. The remaining vehicle, named Manaaki (meaning caring), has been retained as their mobile health asset, one of a number dedicated to their 'Road of Life' outreach programme.

“We’re a last-mile distributor of medical and humanitarian aid, which is to say we put it directly into the hands of those that need it,” explains Tenby. “We don't put it into aid hubs and then have other people siphoned out from there. We go all the way. We've got incredible relationships today with senior politicians, with senior military commanders, with senior civic and business leaders, and now we’re getting personal letters saying, ‘Please help us.”

One of those letters was from the mayor of a very damaged town asking for help with heating. Winter in Ukraine is harsh, with temperatures dropping to below -20˚C.

From this correspondence, the team recognised a huge need for stoves and heaters, and now Kiwi K.A.R.E is funding and manufacturing wood burning stoves and water heaters, recycled from old electrical boilers. In 2022, as a trial, they distributed 280 units, which were described as “lifesaving” by families who received them. Last year, they had requests for more than 1500, and their main aim is to raise funds to manufacture them at a cost of NZ$160 for the stoves and NZ$260 for the combined stove and water heater. If power and water is cut off due to infrastructure damage, the units keep families alive. Attached to each stove that Kiwi K.A.R.E makes is a plaque that says “With Love from New Zealand”.

This all started from one family and, in fact, the whole Kiwi K.A.R.E operation started with just one van, which Tenby purchased during his time in Kyiv before venturing into Ukraine's red zones. They now have a fleet of vehicles, including a 12-tonne truck.

“That’s something I learned from my time at the council here,” says Tenby, referring to his stint as Tauranga’s mayor. “I remember Tauranga's police boss telling me that humanitarian work will always end up with one person, one family. It works with most things; you start small and grow from there.”

In this case, Tenby realised he needed to start with a truck and two vans to deliver 500 sleeping bags and mattresses, 40 stoves and water boilers, and that came down to 150 families.

“There'll be two or three of those families that are desperate, they'll have children, they'll be starving, they'll be sick. Our aim is to reach the people that most need it. And mostly we do.”

As a consequence, however, Tenby says he’s learned the hard way that Kiwi K.A.R.E can't be all things to all people. “God knows we tried and failed. I've had humanitarian aid stolen, which is why we're a last-mile deliverer without using third-party warehouses anymore. I've had people promise me all sorts of things and just disappear into the ether with our aid.”

When I ask Tenby what it is he needs most, he responds simply, “Money.” Back when he first began promoting Kiwi K.A.R.E, Tenby was contacted by more than 200 people hoping to volunteer their time. He still gets an email a week from potential volunteers.

“It’s great, but I can’t do much with that,” says Tenby. “The majority of these people were nurses, teachers and police officers, which would be helpful, but you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. What we need is money and materials.”

Before his first aid visit to Ukraine, Tenby completed a speaking tour around New Zealand at 22 venues and raised $130,000, a significant proportion coming from a Waiheke Island walking group. Made up of some big names like former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry, former chief executive of Bauer Media NZ Paul Dykzeul, and former NZ Rugby and Media Works boss Brent Impey, Tenby explained, “The group said they can solve pretty much every problem in the world walking 10 kilometres around Waiheke Island, but they couldn't solve Ukraine's. So I got a call from Brent and the rest is history.”

Kiwi K.A.R.E is always on the lookout for financial help and has big plans for the coming year, thanks to some generous donations. But Tenby says it’s mostly the fact he’s able to be in face-to-face positions with people on the ground, where the biggest differences are made.

“We cannot move the dial in Ukraine,” admits Tenby. “We don't have the capability to do it. But boy can we move the dial for the people that we touch. We take people from bleak conditions with no hope, to providing lots of hope. And that's worth its weight in gold.”

To help, visit kiwikareukraine.co.nz or donate at givealittle.co.nz/cause/kiwi-kare-ukraine-kiwi-aid-and-refugee-evacuation