Thread by @CoellenCristina

LONG 🧵 ON UKRAINIAN REFUGEES ABROAD 🇺🇦
I said I would write this "soon" & that was like a month ago... but here we are. The bottom line: pls share this, please volunteer, please donate, we're over four months into the #war & people still need to flee & need help abroad

1/22

So I've spent a considerable amount of time in the past months as a volunteer in arrival centres for #Ukrainian refugees in both #Vienna and #Berlin. What I'm saying here is from my experience in these places, but the situation is pretty similar everywhere.

We all remember the images from the very first days of the invasion. The streams of people at the border, the buses coming to pick them up, the volunteers from all over the world, the train stations of Europe with hastily set up arrival centres. The situation has changed much...

...but there are still refugees arriving. They still need help. An example: say Ukrainians are arriving in Berlin by train from Warsaw or Gdynia. They have no idea how to navigate the central train station (which is huge). They need train tickets to get to their next destination.

If they arrive late in the evening (not usual & trains from Poland are always massively delayed), they sometimes don't have a further connection. They will need a place to sleep, something to eat for themselves and food for the cat they might have hastily stuffed in its carrier

They might need a wheelchair for the grandmother who can barely walk and toothbrushes, because who thinks about taking a toothbrush with you when you're fleeing war?

There are hundreds of these - a few weeks ago there were still around a thousand such arrivals per day at #Berlin central station.

The volunteer organisations in place provide all this help and have done so since the first day of invasion. It is a monumental effort.

From technical & logistic support to having a team looking for housing for refugees, catering, a corner for children, providing COVID tests, hygiene products, advice, train tickets, psychological support, translating, welcoming refugees on the platform, showing the way...

The system does not always work smoothly, it's the problem when everything is based on voluntary work. More and more often, there are not enough volunteers to keep certain stations in the arrival center at the train station open.

I witnessed a similar, and in fact worse situation, in #Vienna, in the arrival center near Stadion. While we were a team of 5 or 6 for providing refugees with hot drinks back in April when I was there for the first time, there were two of us in June.

One of the long-term volunteers in Vienna told me she was sad that many people thought "coming to help once or twice meant they did something". Of course, everything helps & volunteering once is better than never doing it. But the problem is the long-term & loss of interest.

That being said, one of the things I admire the most about the different arrival centres are the people. On the one hand, the volunteers: they come from everywhere, some working 12 hour shifts to ensure that refugees can still be provided with hygiene products,...

...or staying until 2am to make sure the last refugees have everything they need and a place to spend the night. One guy came all the way from New York to Berlin when the invasion started, "to help", as he explained.

A special mention goes to the #Ukrainians who are volunteering & doing a crucial job in translating & communicating. Many arrived as refugees themselves just a few weeks or months ago. Despite being new, not speaking German (& sometimes little English), they come back to help

One of them, a lovely woman from near Kyiv, told me she wanted to help her people and also keep busy through volunteering. "If I don't keep busy, I will start thinking about things". There are many of them who want to avoid thinking.

When I talk about the people, there are also the refugees themselves that are admirable. The ones that make a light joke when standing in line for donations & answer laughingly, when I explain that Russian is a difficult language for me, "Don't worry, it's difficult for us too".

There are the ones that try to keep their children entertained while waiting for their next train after having travelled for days (not unusual). There are the ones that remain polite even when we have no donations left & cannot even offer them toothpaste anymore.

There are the ones that have been through hell and say thank you and hug me goodbye after showing them around the center (the family from Mariupol I mentioned a while ago) and somehow they don't collapse on the floor.

This brings me to one aspect of the situation in arrival centres: the frustration. It is frustrating because very often we're helpless. The refugees are helpless, and the volunteers are helpless when we cannot help in an adequate way. It's often due to a lack of resources...

as everything is donated (everything) & money is scarce, and always because we cannot undo war crimes, death and destruction, even though we want to. So, we're limited to giving the help & products that we can give. Donations get rationed everywhere, btw.

One other aspect: the refugees are not all perfect human beings. Some get angry, frustrated, and yes, some are impolite & demanding. But these are some, not all & it is in no way a justification to not help. And it has nothing to do with nationality, it's just being human.

Once again: there is a lack of everything, whether that's coffee, baby wipes, cat food or beds for Ukrainians to sleep in. There is a lack of helping hands. There is too much "war fatigue" in Europe & it's dangerous, both for the military effort in 🇺🇦 & for those seeking safety

Laat one: a little encouragement in the hygiene products station at #Berlin Arrival Support center 🇺🇦

As pointed out by @europabridge1 (thank you), here's the link to the Berlin Arrival support webpage, where there's more info on how to donate (both financially and for hygiene products etc) if you are able to! 💙💛
arrivalsupport.berlin/en/