James Story

Today we Feature James, a Sponsor in north east of England. (Near Middlesbrough)

“When my wife and I chose to look for a Ukrainian refugee to help we didn’t know where to start.
We had registered on the UK Gov site as interested in helping and apart from some emails from them we didn’t find any help on there to actually finding someone to accommodate for at least 6 months.

A little while later I started to find Ukrainian refugee help pages were populating Facebook and I joined a few of them. We soon saw dozens of posts from those wishing to come to the UK from Ukraine and many heart-breaking stories from people who had lost everything from the Russian aggression. We couldn’t help them all and with one room available it limited our options to help.

We then by chance came across an individual who had posted up a request for help a few minutes beforehand. The young lady had wanted to be safer away from an area that had been bombarded by Putin’s forces and her family also wanted her to be in a safe place. Her husband was not able to leave Ukraine, her parents and In-laws were also unable to travel due to being either behind Russian lines or their jobs were vital to the wellbeing of others.

We were not sure what we had to do next and once again by sheer luck came across a page run by the “Sunflower Sisters” charity, and it wasn’t long before a local member of that organisation was providing much needed help and advice on what the whole process involved and recommendations on how best to take the next few steps along the way to help our “matched” refugee. This involved also having a video call with her and a shared messenger chat with the local representative from the Sisters charity.

James

This made sense, it worked very well and offered assurance for both us and the young lady who wanted to move here.

It was not long before our refugee had arrived and was welcomed to the UK, she was with us a number of weeks. We got her registered with local Doctors, Job Centre and signed up for a local language course. It all happened quite quickly and we always had the “Sisters” to help with any questions we had.

The Sunflower Sisters also had organised local get togethers each week for Ukrainians to meet up and to share experiences which all helped with the settling in with our guest.

The local council visited and were also helpful and this was in line with what we had expected from hearing about the usual process from the charity.

We are grateful for the help they provided and as they are an organisation who wishes to ensure the safety of women and children in coming to the UK we can thoroughly recommend them to anyone considering being a host from a Ukrainian.

Our Guest has since left us to move to a different safe country due to a job offer that was too good to refuse.

As we enjoyed the experience, were glad to help with the safety of a refugee away from this terrible conflict and we learnt much from the first experience we have already completed an application for another person who could be joining us in a matter of days or a week or two.

If you read this , rest assured that the vast majority of hosting’s of Ukrainians have gone very well and yes there will be some that for whatever reason things don’t always work out but I say to our guest “treat this like an extended holiday” to begin with and to hosts “treat them like visiting relatives” and perhaps soon they will be like family. Best wishes to all”

James is now expecting his second guest to arrive soon!

"Sisters Stories" Is a series of discussion topics hosted by Sunflower Sisters on their private community group on Facebook.  Its a place where sponsors and guests reflect honestly and constructively on their experiences within the scheme. Their experiences will not always be plain sailing, but they will be real, and we make no apologies for the accounts in this series ultimately being satisfying ones! Some will be short and snappy, and others will need you to make a cuppa or pour a glass of wine and settle down to read, but we hope all will be insightful, interesting and perhaps give you something to think about. #SunflowerStories

The group is open to ladies only and is a support group for both sponsors and guests, you can take part in the debate by joining our private community homepage by clicking the button below.

This story was originally posted on Facebook on 03/09/202