Hosts for refugees from Ukraine
Written by duesseldorf 2 years agoDue to the recent escalation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over 10 million people are believed to have been displaced from their homes. About 4.3 million people, mostly women, children, and the elderly, have left Ukraine, while about 6.5 million are internally displaced. As of April 17, according to the United Nations, 2,780,913 people have fled to Poland, 743,880 to Romania, 461,539 to Hungary, 423,852 to Moldova, and 337,311 to Slovakia. Smaller but still significant numbers of refugees have arrived elsewhere in the world, from the United States and Brazil to Japan and Ireland.
In all of these places, recent arrivals need shelter and support. Some BeWelcomers have already begun helping:
One BeWelcome member in Wroclaw hosted a Ukrainian refugee in his apartment for a month, in addition to helping coordinate places to stay for some of the millions of people that have arrived in Poland from Ukraine.
He also helped another BeWelcome member, Ansgar, and his family connect with a family of three that fled from Ukraine. They’ve now been hosting them for about a month, and plan to keep hosting the family into the summer. It’s not their first time hosting refugees either — in 2016–17 Ansgar and co. opened their doors to a mother and son from Syria, for 16 months.
Ansgar writes, “The inspiration to us to start on all of this was when we came across a saying that went like this: ‘When you have more than you need, you need to start building higher walls or get a bigger table.’ We chose to get a bigger table. As a family, we've benefited greatly from this — rather than all five of us having to go far to learn about the world, we invited the world into our home and have lots of great stories to tell that we learned from our guests. Especially for the children, this has been very inspiring and encouraging.”
The family that’s staying with them now has an eight-month-old son who’s quickly become the center of the household, and now that they’ve got immigration paperwork, health insurance, and benefits sorted, the next question is whether or not they can fit one more family in their house…
His final note: “From our experience, we can only recommend it to anyone with a bit of room to spare. To us, it's really been a pleasure, despite the work that it's also been and will continue to be! :-)”
If you would like to open your home to refugees from Ukraine, please check out the “Ukraine - Україна Refugees” forum group! If you are a refugee fleeing from Ukraine, please contact the people offering their homes in that group or, if there are no offers in your location (just a few recently posted locations include Tulle, France; Prague, Czechia; Jersey City, NJ, USA; and Palma, Mallorca, Spain) or that fit your needs, post a request.