The idea of creating a CIC organisation to help out Ukrainian refugees came from the overall situation that is happening right now on the territory of Ukrainian. In February 2022, Ukraine was invaded by Russia and over 7.2 million citizens have fled the country to escape the war. More than 100,000 of these people have chosen the UK as their safe place to stay as the war progressively gets worse, destroying most of these refugees’ homes.
I, myself am half Ukrainian and most of my life I spent in Ukraine. It was heart-breaking for me to see what has been done to my country and my fellow citizens. This served as one of my main reasons why “Volya Ukraina” was set up in June 2022.
My priority is to make sure that even as a minority in this country, I want to provide these refugees with fare opportunities and possibilities. Volya Ukraina is working with the Council and other volunteering organisations e.g., Community 360, Rotary Club and Refugees Active, together creating new opportunities for further development to provide Ukrainians for their period of stay.
The goal in the future is to create a safe place for the refugees to feel free to come for advice, this would mean creating a Ukrainian hub where they would have access to all necessities.
It all started from me volunteering in helping Ukrainians come out to England in around April. I helped to finding them families and matched them together through the government sponsorship program ‘Homes for Ukraine’, assisting them through the paperwork in order to get their visas and in most instances I was their standing translator. This then led to the creation of the Facebook group which was made to inform the refugees that have already arrived about the latest government decisions or benefits, as well as just sharing each other’s stories and trying to stay connected Volya Ukraina Info
As a volunteer I also, delivered (2,300 km.) a military Jeep to the Ukrainian soldiers that was filled with Humanitarian Aid, the car was delivered into the hot spot of the war at the time in a town called Lviv. Following that, I made the decision to stay in Ukraine in my hometown, Uzzhorod to help out people who were desperately trying to find an escape. Spending long hours days and nights working with local volunteers and the Ukrainian Rotary club at the train station, we were witnessing people arriving on trains from the pits of war to a somewhat much peaceful town which is luckily located next to the Hungarian and Slovak border from where they were in need of any and every help they could get their hands on. It was a hard image to look at as people left everything they have ever known behind because they were force out of their own homes by the war.
Due to many people leaving Ukraine, a lot of abandoned animals were left at the train station. This made me want to raise awareness to the issue and show the world that it’s not only the human that suffer at these tough times. I went to the local shelters in Uzzhorod and took a few videos as evidence to firstly show how many animals are in those shelters and secondly to make the world see that most of the shelters are out of the public eye barricaded away behind either the county dumpster or outside in the country yard. They are hard to access by foot or even by car however they are in a desperate need of help, that is why I later posted the videos and created a Facebook fundraiser to try to at least gather some fund to help them cover a small portion of their huge medical bills. The animal shelter: Every one have a second chance ( Кожен мае другий шанс)
The fundraising page for the shelter: They want to live and be in a warm home 😔💙💛
All these factors have pushed me to open my own CIC company, Volya Ukraina, in order to be able to receive more help from official organisation financially and to make sure I can make bigger changes that would have a larger impact on the community we now have here in Essex.
