Trip update 3

We woke-up In Stryi, Ukraine with temperature around minus 15 Celsius. We could not get breakfast or coffee as the electricity was down.

Then we drove onwards and met Іван Цимбала (Ivan), Христина Цимбала (Kristina) and Rostyslav in the town of Skole at the dental clinic. The official handover of the ambulance was done at the city hall with the major of Skole followed by a nice lunch.

The people here are super warm, communicative and friendly. Besides small talk and lots of laughter, the war here is very real: only at certain hours of the day there is electricity, air alarms are common, the local railroad bridge was bombed, sons and fathers are in the army and families are separated.

Ivan and his wife Kristina brought us back to the border of Poland and without many problems we returned to Rzeszow.

The final pieces of the mobile dental-station will be completed in the next weeks! Then in January it will be used by Ivan, Rostyslav and their dentist friends in the East of the Ukraine.

Best - Guido

Ukraine trip update

After dropping off the supplies from Jelle van der Knijff to Agnes Sz who leads the Polish distribution center in Krakau, we drove to the Medyka crossing to enter the Ukraine.

Literally miles and miles of trucks & cars are backed-up waiting to enter the country. Fortunately we could play the ‘medical-aid card’ and drive past with our ambulance. After a confusing and stressful 90 minutes of paperwork / waiting / etc we crossed the border!

On the Ukraine side there are very few lights, the roads with snow are super slippery and we saw some cars that spun off the road. Tonight we will sleep in Stryi a couple of hours south of Lviv….

Monday the 19th it is st Nicolas day in the Ukraine. We have been preparing an planning for an amazing gift.

In the east part of the ukraine there is a shortage of Dental clinics because of the war. We have converted a modern Ambulance into a mobile self powered dental station. This will enable dentists from dental hospital Skole, close to Lviv will make weekly trips to the east of the Ukraine and treat people at no cost!

Currently Vincent and Guido are driving to Krakow with the converted Ambulance to drop off a full load of emergency supplies. After this the trip continues to Skole in the Ukraine.

The local government of the Netherlands are generally supporting Dutch classes for the Ukrainian people that arrive to help with their integration. Regretfully Dutch is not an easy language to learn whilst many people from the Ukraine have learned English in school or University. We also met Olga, the owner of a language school in the Ukraine, who fled the Ukraine with her husband and four children to the Netherlands. She was the ideal partner to start a language school initiative!

Thanks to your funding, we were able to support six months of intense English classes for a large group of Ukrainians that fled to the Netherlands. At the same time, this helped Olga’s to establish her language school in The Netherlands! 

Herewith an update that is way overdue. We would like to give you an update on the 17 Ukrainian families that were supported by your funding of UkrainianFamilies.nl. For all families’ that came over to The Netherlands, government registration, housing and living allowance was arranged. In addition, all children were going to school within weeks of arrival! It is very important to mention that all families are now fully independent again:

• Eleven families have income from a regular job in The Netherlands;
• Two families have income from their company or are self-employed;
• One family has moved to Germany;
• Three families have moved back to the Ukraine to be reunited with their families;

This accomplishment would not have been possible without Tanya, our family coordinator that stayed in close contact with all families to ensure they settled in The Netherlands.

Two more initiatives from our initiative are in the way. Updates to follow in the next few days!

Galina and the Children have finished their first semester at a Dutch school! Attached picture of Galina’s grandson Maksym running during last week's sports event. Their stay at Petra’s place in Amsterdam Oost has ended however, we found new location in Amsterdam starting on the 20th of July. We cannot thank Petra enough for making her place available and helping to find a new location.

We are closing this period with arranging financial support for the housing of two families and providing more bikes to another family now accustomed to the Dutch bike culture. In observation of the holiday period, no new activities will be deployed until September, outside of responding to help requests from the families in our network. 

Best- Gosia, Guido, Vincent & Tanya

Dear All,

We continue to make progress on integrating our Ukrainian families into Dutch society. A couple of weeks ago we designed a dashboard that helps us with tracking several areas we find key for our families. Among others we make sure each family has a local “buddy”/a person to talk to, permanent place to live (6 months +), completes government registration & financial support application, we also help with arranging schooling for children and job search. We currently have 17 families with an average “integration” score of 93%.

One area that continues to be a challenge and our focus is finding permanent accommodation. We are currently looking for accommodation for Galina and her 3 grandchildren and Olga, her husband and four children. We would greatly appreciate all help with finding accommodation for our families; if you are aware of available apartments or houses please contact us at ukrainefamiliesnl@gmail.com.

The success story we would like to share with you is about Kirill and his wife Tanya. They arrived with their 3 babies at the beginning of April and at this point we consider them fully settled in The Netherlands. We have helped them to find a permanent place to stay and very recently, Kirill took on the job at food processing company in Landsmeer.  He has also started volunteering at a municipal accommodation facility for Ukrainians in Landsmeer. Wishing you all the best Kirill and Tanya!

Dear All,

Our charity mission is to help Ukrainian families establish new life in The Netherlands. Since April we have joined forces with Olga, a teacher who provides English classes to Ukrainians. Thanks to these classes, our Ukrainian families find it easier to integrate into Dutch communities and have a better chance at fulfilling their goals and dreams for new life. English classes are vital, as they improve chances to pursue a better job or in some cases previous occupation. This is also our way of supporting Olga whose dream is to re-establish her English teaching school in The Netherlands. Here is a couple words from Olga about the school and her students:

“My name is Olga. And I am from Ukraine. I used to travel a lot before the war, and I know how important the language is. When my family and I moved to the Netherlands, I saw it with my own eyes.

I am thankful to the Foundation that it could organize English classes for Ukrainians in the Netherlands. I am sure that using our unique ElSol system the students can start speaking English fluently and they can master the language with pleasure.

So, 11 elementary students, who couldn’t speak English at all or knew a few words from school, after 12 classes have already started looking for a job. They are attentive at the lesson, do their homework and take part in all the activities of our school besides our lessons. 4 students have a bit higher level. They want to hone their English skills anyway in order to get a good job with their diploma. 

I am sure they all have a chance. And of course, I am grateful to the Foundation for an opportunity to work online and take care of my four kids. It’s hard to start a new life especially if you had everything, a house, a business, a future. At the end of the lesson, I am used to saying that everything will be fine. We, Ukrainians, are strong. All the world is helping us. We can’t let our country down. So, learn English.”

Time for a positive update from Galina and her three grandchildren. The owner of the apartment where they are staying in Amsterdam needed her apartment for a week. Luckily this coincided with the Dutch school holiday so we were able to arrange a nice solution: Mia owns a large AirBnB property in Well close to the border with Germany. in the picturesque National park De Maasduinen. She graciously made this available for the week. Arnold, the first host of Galina, offered to bring the family from Amsterdam to Well and also helped with shopping, getting settled in the house etc. Guido arranged the trip back to Amsterdam and helped with preparing the house for the next guests. In the attached picture, you can see Galina and her grandchildren. They really enjoyed their time in Well: the house was fantastic, they loved spending time in nature plus they had wonderful weather.

Today, Galina and the children received their  social security registrations and financial government support. This is really thanks to the hard work and multiple trips to the city hall from Tanya, our family coordinator! Tanya, you are a star!