Ukraine to Chilterns Charity

Hallmak November 2022. Ukraine To Chilterns Charity. Report by Louisa Spearing

As we head towards winter, many of our Ukrainian guests have been living within our community for six months or more. Indeed, Ukraine to Chilterns has been operating for 8 months and the time has flown by.

We are delighted to announce that we are now ‘official’. After months of challenging work behind the scenes from our treasurer Caroline Gulliver, Ukraine to Chilterns is now a registered charity with a bank account! This is incredibly good news and allows us to fully support our Ukrainian community and their hosts. Our numbers currently stand at 192 Ukrainians staying with 75 host families.

Back to School. Following an incredibly busy summer schedule, our thriving Ukrainian community continue to fully embrace life in the UK. Our September focus was, like for so many, ‘back to school’, so the amazing team at The Clothes Barn have been working hard sorting out the latest generous donations and supplying grants for new school uniforms and comfortable warm clothes. The grants have been kindly funded by The Rotary Club, Princes Risborough.

Oksana s story. We gratefully attended a fantastic benefit concert held in Speen, where we were given the opportunity to highlight the work of the charity; we invited Oksana to join us to share her story.

Oksana and her daughter Maria arrived in Princes Risborough in April, leaving her husband, son, and apartment in Irpin that was devastated by a missile on March 17th. Now fully embracing life in the UK, Oksana’s goal is to launch her interior design business in the UK. The incredibly talented contemporary folk singer, Grainne Hunt entertained us through the evening and kindly dedicated a song to Oksana. Thank you Speen for your support, it really is making a difference.

Possible returns. During August and September, several of our guest families returned to the Ukraine to see their loved ones. Despite the insidious threat of further destructive action, it was a period of relative calm in many of the areas that our guests are from and perhaps lulled us all into a false sense of security.

Several of the local families had even begun making plans to return home permanently. The events of early October have been sudden, viscous and terrifying for our guests. It has made any return to their homes very unlikely in the short term. The need to continue to support these refugees within our community remains as important as ever.

Local links. As a charity, we have an array of challenges and we are working incredibly hard to mitigate these. We have forged strong links with many of the local community groups and Bucks Council.

The unerring generosity of these groups and individuals locally has been heartwarming. Both the trustees of Ukraine to Chilterns Charity and those that we support are overwhelmed with gratitude for it.

Accommodation. One of our major issues is finding alternative accommodation for families who need to move elsewhere after their initial six months. This situation is difficult for all concerned and is almost always the result of a change in circumstance for one of the parties involved. As you can imagine there are no easy fixes for this and it is further compounded by the lack of available rental properties and the Jong waiting lists for social housing.

Rematching. Our solution has been to re-match our guests. We have had considerable success with this method and other groups like ours are adopting the idea. The benefits are clear; a re-matched sponsor does not have the headache of registering and creating bank accounts with their guests, as this has already been done. The guest already has a social network locally and in most cases an income. The children are settled within school and their language acquisition is vastly improved from their arrival.

One such success story is of a guest and her two children who were recently re-matched with a local widower. The children, particularly the youngest who is only 4, have begun to refer to their new sponsor as their grandfather! The host and the guests have enhanced each other's lives and the family is secure for at least another six months.

If you feel that being a re-matched sponsor is something you may be interested in, we would be very happy to talk with you, answer your questions and introduce you to others that can tell you their stories. Please contact Lizzie Thomas-Davies on lizzie@thomas-davies.com or visit our website, to register an interest www.ukraine2chilterns.com

Summer trips. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Janet Voke, Sarah Halliday and Motts Travel who organised and provided the transport for our excellent local trips over the summer.

A group of forty Ukrainian families enjoyed a variety of heritage sites over three days in the holidays. They visited Tyringham Hall, Ascott House and the Chiltern Open Air Museum, it was a resounding success.

The photo opposite shows Greg Smith, MP, and the guests during the trip to Tyringham Hall, Cuddington.

The Beacon and SuperCamps hosted thirty of our guest children aged between 5 and 13 for two weeks over the summer holidays. The children had a fabulous time and their English learning improved immensely! This was a hugely generous Opportunity and we thank the Beacon School in Amersham wholeheartedly.

Community support. The Princes Risborough Rotary supported the charity to run a stall at the Kop Hill Climb and sponsored several Ukrainian youngsters in the ‘soapbox Challenge’ It was a brilliant weekend.

We continue to run our busy autumn/winter schedule and shout out a plea for anyone who is interested in getting involved. We particularly hope to find more host families and other local accommodation options including rooms for rent, to help us ensure our Ukrainian friends can continue to stay in this area whilst Putin continues to wage war on these innocent people.

For more information and details on how to get in touch please visit our website and fill in our contact form (the website is currently being updated so please bear with us) Ukraine2chilterns.com

Ukrainian soapbox. Each year at the Kop Hill Climb Festival, there is an event known as the Soapbox Challenge. This runs over the weekend and is for young people aged between 8 and 17 years of age. The idea is that they help build a soapbox from ‘bits and pieces’ like old bike wheels and other scrap.

This year there were 11 soapbox teams. Of these we had 3 Ukrainian teams:

– Crazy Frog - driven by Stella, Danya and Olga

– Ice Spirit - driven by Dan, Yarik, Nikita and Sofia

– Start Ukraine - driven by Maria, Yegor, Nikita and Andrei

The soapboxes are taken to the top of a ramp, the driver gets in and when the track is clear, the start marshals release it. The track is marked out with straw bales and a good run will be more than 70 meters from the start.

The only power is gravity and the winner of the competition is determined by the team that can go the furthest. The best run of day 1 being added to the best run of day 2.

Of the 3 teams, Ice Spirit did the best, coming in third overall, but all of the teams were fantastic, helping to create a great competition and some great moments. Also, grateful thanks to Yuri who pushed soapboxes up the ramp, tirelessly over the 2 days and to the Princes Rotary for their sponsorship.

We are already planning for 2023 and aim to have Soapbox open day at the Repair Barn to encourage young people to come and have a go, building and preparing a Soapbox for the competition.