Dear All,

Providing some social glue is important for the wellbeing of the families. Last weekend Ana, one of our volunteers, took five Ukrainian families to Rijksmuseum. The visit to the museum is free for the refugees all week upon presentation of a Ukrainian passport. It was a lot of fun and was a great opportunity to meet other families who fled the violence of war in their homeland. During the Dutch Kingsday celebration, Guido took Valentina to an outdoor party and a number of her Ukrainian friends joined later at night as well.

We are doing well on the scorecard of success for the families in our network. The scorecard contains for each family metrics like, government registration completeness, schooling in place for the children, jobs for the adults, permanent housing found and so on. Each family starts with a zero % score at the start. On average we are now at 80% score thanks to the help of so many!

In the attached pictures, you can see Ana and the 5 families she took to the museum.

Here is a quick update on our families. In the Netherlands, it is obligatory to send children to school within 2 weeks from arrival. In the past weeks, we have been busy with all arrangements but we are pleased to share with you that we have managed to arrange school for 9 out of 11 families with children. In the attached picture, you can see Alisa's and Veronika's first trip to school. They are accompanied by Gerard, the host of one of the families in Landsmeer, who walked them to school. They all seem happy and excited!

Thank you all for your generous donations!

We have been recently joined by two new families that both arrived last week.

Tetyana with her daughter Alisa, sister Inna and niece Vika came from Energodar, a city that has been occupied for several weeks now. Their trip to The Netherlands was very tiresome and difficult. Their host Gerard gave them a warm welcome and a safe place to stay in Landsmeer.
 

In addition, Kiril with his wife and 3 children arrived last week. They are now safe and comfortable in the house of Ad and Anneke in Landsmeer.

There is great news to share with you about Oksana, the English teacher that came to The Netherlands three weeks ago. Since then she found her own place to live and thanks to the help of Guido's sister, she was able to start this week as English teacher for Ukrainian refugee children at a school in Amsterdam.
 

More updates to come next week!

Dears All,

The next phase of UkraineFamiliesNL is on the way: we are professionalizing our small organization to ensure this becomes a sustainable initiative. Firstly, today we have become an official foundation by Dutch law. This will ensure transparency on how funding is used and bring tax benefits to individuals and companies that donate to the initiative.

We need to thank to the unpaid support from actusnotarissen.nl/, a Dutch notary with locations in Amsterdam and the surrounding cities. Below a picture of the three directors at their offices: Guido, Gosia and Vincent. We are very happy that Vincent has joined the team. Besides being a caring individual, he brings a large network as well as his experience as attorney-at-law, specialized in commercial-, corporate- and labor-law.

Since this week have support from Tanya in the role of Family Coordinator. Tanya has moved five years ago form the Ukraine and speaks Ukrainian, Russian, English and Dutch. Each week she will contact all families and hosts to ensure we are working on the right things to support the families.  Now we have reached some level of stability, we are in the preparation phase to bring over more families.

The pressure point is finding accommodation where the new families can stay at least for five months. Some creativity will be required due to the housing shortage in The Netherlands. We are considering finding accommodation in buildings like unused holiday-homes, an empty church or other. Although UkraineFamiliesNL foundation will not cover commercial rent; we can handle liabilities, utility expenses and municipal taxes.

Tonya, Voka (17) and Nikita (7) spent their last Sunday in Amsterdam ARTIS zoo.  They are staying with Michiel, a wonderful host who is doing everything he can to take care of Tonya’s family. Here is a couple of sentences he shared with us:

“It is certainly not easy to take care of the whole family. We suddenly have to eat, shower, watch TV, sleep and live with 3 extra people. But it is well worth it, because it is necessary and there is nothing more beautiful and also more important than helping people who really need it. And they are marvellous people!

Last Sunday we went to a zoo in Amsterdam and for the first time in a week we saw a smile on their faces. There is nothing to laugh about for them, but it is nice to forget yourself for a while.”

Another family we helped is Tatiana, her mother and 4-year old daughter. They came to The Netherlands earlier in March and we assisted them with finding a place to stay. We have connected Tatiana with Myrna, a buddy and a host in Naarden. The family has already completed all government registrations and is now waiting for the BSN (tax) numbers so they can apply for a subsidy and establish a new life in The Netherlands. Tatiana is a software engineer and has already started job hunting. Let's all wish her good luck!

In the attached picture you can see the whole family enjoying springtime in The Netherlands.

To make sure we are providing good care of the fifteen families, we have placed a temporary hold on bringing more Families over this weekend. Below you will learn of the activities over the past days.

Early in the week, Galina and her 3 grandchildren moved from Muiderberg to Amsterdam. They are now living in Amsterdam East, the apartment is provided by their host Mateo and will be able to stay here for a few of months. Many thanks to Amsterdam based company Snurk (snurkamsterdam.com) who provided us with duvet covers and pillowcases free of charge for the various families. Galina and her grandchildren are now using these in their new home!

For two people in the group, urgent Dental care was needed. We would like to thank Dentist Jan Mentrop and his team from Den2 Dentists in Hilversum (den2.nl/) for doing this free of charge!

The Dutch government now has announced how they will financially support Ukrainian refugees in The Netherlands financially. It will take many weeks until this will be available however. We have developed a fair financial support scheme for five families that really need this for basic food and necessities until the government support is in place. This is made possible thanks to your generous donations!

Another family we are helping is Daryna and her 8 years old son. They arrived in The Netherlands earlier in March and we helped them with finding housing. They now live in Hoofddorp, a town close to Amsterdam. 

The last couple of weeks were very sunny, a perfect weather for cycling. Anna (part of our team) and her son have donated their bike to Daryna's son. In the attached picture you can see him getting ready for his first bike ride in The Netherlands. Watch-out for the tourists on the cycling lanes!

Last Friday the driver that has volunteered (Ruslan) started the another journey to the Poland/Ukraine border. He picked up 3 families and brought them safely to The Netherlands on Sunday morning. It has been a very long and tiresome trip for all of them. Mila has been great in organising housing; all families are already connected with their hosts and are settling in.

Attached picture was taken in Poland when Tonya with her 2 children, Iya with her mother and Yulia with a friend started their trip to The Netherlands.
Tonya with her kids Voka (17) and Nikita (7) came from Zaporigia looking for a safe place to stay. Tonya's husband stayed back in Ukraine to protect the country. Mila connected the family with a wonderful host in Almere where they will be looked after and can feel safe.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days.