Hi guys, the invasion of Ukraine and the devastation it brings to ordinary families is colossal. Todays nomination comes from our friend and member Joe Field who has nominated a phenomenal young woman called Val who was brought here with her Mum by a family that drove into the city of Kiev risking their own lives to take them out to safety.
Now Val and her mother are safely in England they want to help other Ukrainian families reach safety as the invasion is still raging and the danger to human life is as real as ever. Val currently has 60 families that she knows of, of varying sizes that desperately need a place to stay here in the UK.
Through their jobs finding Ukrainian students places to study in the UK they have been able to utilise those contacts to help so many but there are still many more that need our help. Our £500 will help assist Val and her mother and two other volunteers to help these families get to safety.
These families need a letter for a UK resident to say they can host the family for 6 months rent free. If this is an undertaking that yourselves or anyone you know could potentially help with then please contact Val at www.BHSU.co.ukThanks500 Reasons Admin Team.Here’s Joe’s nomination in full:I’m so pleased to nominate a charity supporting Ukrainian refugees this week. In many ways I began my professional life in Ukraine, I lived and worked there from 2002-2007 and I found it to be a beautiful place, filled with lovely, welcoming people. I was there through one revolution, in 2004, and visited after the second in 2016, both expressions of a young country bravely asserting its demands for its own future, on its own terms. It has been horrific for me to see all that optimism and potential upended by the horrific invasion this year, and all of my friends and ex-students become refugees, soldiers, and victims. Many of the refugees are in the UK, horribly separated from their devastated homes and communities. Madly, and obviously, all the refugees are women and children, divided from husbands, fathers and brothers who have remained, fighting so valiantly as we see in the news every day. British Homes and Schools for Ukrainians (BHSU) is a unique operation. Formed from a Ukrainian educational agency called BusinessLink and their longtime British partners, Living Learning English, they are turning decades of experience helping Ukrainian students find schools and homes into the UK to a new and massively worthwhile cause. Using their combined expertise with language and bureaucracy and navigating the modern UK they are giving Ukrainian refugees invaluable support in what is - of course – a massively daunting, stressful, expensive, and incomprehensible situation. BHSU is shepherded by Bristol businesswoman Kate and Ukrainian mother and daughter, Tanya and Valeria, themselves refugees. Despite their own struggles and losses and horrible trek across Europe they are working to make the best for other Ukrainians. They currently have 60 refugees on their lists, who still need homes, so if you have thought about supporting Ukrainian refugees, or haven’t until now, or know somebody or somewhere that might be able to, please have a look at their website and get in touch.