Hosting Ukrainian families in the Elmbridge community has been a profound experience for those who have done it. Opening a home and welcoming other people into the family takes courage, but it is also a hugely rewarding experience.
Two Ukrainian families have recently arrived in Elmbridge, with mothers and friends Olena and Tetiana previously owning a travel agency together at home. The two families are close, but nothing could have prepared them for an epic journey across Europe, which lasted over two months and spanned over 3000 km.
Diane, an Elmbridge resident had been thinking of embracing this opportunity for a while and was in the fortunate position of having space in her home. She comments: “I had followed the war in the news and had been in touch with Elmbridge Borough Council to say I’d be interested in having somebody. I had a phone call one day and I was then introduced to Tetiana, Alex and Daria.”
Tetiana and her two children, Alex (15) and Daria (11), lived in Vinnytsia, a city in central Ukraine. When the war broke out on 24 February 2022, Tetiana’s husband stayed behind to join the military. A bomb landed at the military base just three kilometres outside the city on the first day of fighting.
“We never thought about coming to England at first,” Alex explains. “I’ve always wanted to study abroad, I learnt English when I was four, then I started to learn French. I never thought about coming to the UK because it’s so hard to get a visa. I tried to learn some Czech on the way here, but I didn’t really like it, so I said to Mum, ‘Let’s go to America’. She said, ‘How are we going to go to America with this car?’ Then Mum found the Homes for Ukraine programme in the UK on Facebook, and we applied for that.”
Diane’s son and two daughters live locally and have been very supportive. She is a former primary school headteacher who retired from her most recent role as a director of a counselling charity and had lived alone in Weybridge for the past six years when she opened her doors to Tetiana’s family.
Tetiana’s children attend school locally and feel secure and safe in their new environment. “Everything is good here,” says Daria. “I love Diane because she’s so happy everyday and she is always joking. Rose is a lovely dog too.”
Tetiana is equally thankful that Diane has come into their lives. She says, “Di has opened not just her house but also her heart, and we thank her so much for that.”
Just a mile away, Elmbridge residents Cathy and Bob invited Olena and her children, Nikita (16) and Mike (8) into their home in September 2022. Cathy is a recently retired primary school teacher, and Bob is still busy combining work and amateur cricket.
“After working 24/7 for 40-odd years, I like the fact that people are coming and going all the time,” Cathy says. “We get on really well. When you live with people, occasionally some things annoy you but not a lot, to be honest. The better you get to know people, the better you can work things out. We eat separately but occasionally at weekends we’ll get a takeaway together or cook together.”
Cathy continues, “We have arrangements in the house to allow independence and inter-dependence. You must be flexible.
“You’ve got to not mind about sharing your house as a home for someone else, and we don’t mind that at all. You become a household that understands how you all work together and that develops over time. And the best thing is Olena’s cheesecake, she makes the best cheesecake ever!"
“They help our boys with their homework sometimes which is great,” Olena reveals. “I love this family and it’s an amazing place to live. For Nikita, who is older, it was difficult to settle at first, but Mike doesn’t want to go back to the Ukraine, he loves it here.”
What’s more, Olena and Tetiana are embarking on new careers too. After leaving the travel business behind they are taking their first steps into landscape gardening after initially working at their hosts’ gardens and then expanding to the neighbours.
Olena and Tetiana left a wholesome life behind and want to embrace the new world as much as possible. “When we came here, I put my heart into it to make it an interesting trip,” Tetiana says. “Sometimes I can’t understand what has happened to us and what will happen in the future and when I think about this, it’s very bad for my mental health. So, I think about what we have here, with Diane and other nice people nearby, my children studying in school, and a lovely garden for us, a safe place where there are no rockets flying overhead.”
The war is, inevitably, a constant presence in their lives, with Nikita and Alex paying particular attention to what is happening back home. “I have to follow it, my Dad is in the military so I get to know all the news,” Alex explains. “Dad has been in dangerous situations. He has been near the frontline at times. Then Dad started to do a role involving more paperwork, so he got moved to headquarters, but he still travels to the frontline at times.”
Out of the most terrible circumstances these two families have formed a lifelong bond with their hosts in the UK. And for the hosts, this has been a fulfilling opportunity to share something incredibly precious: a home.
If you are interested in hearing more about the possibility of hosting a Ukrainian guest already in Elmbridge, please get in touch with Elmbridge CAN or email contact@elmbridgecan.org.uk.
Hosts and guests can get to know each other before committing to an arrangement and people already here usually require less support. Hosts receive a payment of £600 per month from Elmbridge Borough Council and both hosts and guests can contact Elmbridge CAN for support at any time.