Welcome Centre Director: "Keep your hearts and doors open to Ukrainians"

The director of a new Ukrainian Welcome Centre in central London has urged Britons to keep their hearts and doors open to Ukrainians who are arriving in the UK fleeing the war in their homeland.

Andriy Marchenko talks to us about the Centre, based at the cathedral of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family near Bond Street in central London

It provides a single point of contact for essential information for arrival, settling and long-term living in the UK and is a partnership between the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain.

"Many of these people have come through a lot of hardship before ending up in the United Kingdom. Many have been through a lot and they tend to be stressed out, they tend to be disoriented sometimes and we aim to help them, to signpost them to the right services in the UK, to give them correct advice so that they know exactly what to do - what their next move should be in order to succeed and, eventually, to thrive in the United Kingdom."

ukrainianwelcomecentre.org

My name is Andriy Marchenko. I'm the director of the Ukrainian Welcome Centre. The Ukrainian Welcome Centre has been set up in London as a joint initiative of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain. This is, of course, a direct response to the escalation of Russia's war against Ukraine. It is common knowledge that there are many Ukrainians who are coming to the United Kingdom as they are seeking refuge here from Russian attacks.

Our centre aims to support these people as they arrive in the United Kingdom. They need to settle, they need to get all their documentation ready, they have to send their children to schools - the majority of those who are coming are mothers with children. They need to find the proper accommodation, they need social support, they need to find jobs, they need practically to start life anew - even if it is for a little while.

Many of these people have come through a lot of hardship before ending up in the United Kingdom. Many have been through a lot and they tend to be stressed out, they tend to be disoriented sometimes and we aim to help them, to signpost them to the right services in the UK, to give them correct advice so that they know exactly what to do - what their next move should be in order to succeed and, eventually, to thrive in the United Kingdom.

We normally organise open days here at the centre where Ukrainians can come and ask the questions that are troubling them. We also get quite an extensive support from the UK government. So, for instance, the Home Office Department for Levelling Up and the Department for Work and Pensions send their representatives to our centre for drop-in sessions with the Ukrainians where they can actually directly point those questions to the government.

We also provide additional services such as psychological support, GP access, immigration lawyers and so forth. We have set up quite an operation, mostly volunteer-based, but of course we have a lot of support on the part of the Eparchy and also on the part of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain who have supplied a lot of knowledgeable people with a lot of experience in dealing with such matters, who are instrumental to running this centre. I feel blessed that I am surrounded by so many people.

We have lots of plans for the future. Right now we have been more or less setting up [our operations] and the past few months have been what we would call the initial few months for our centre.

It is not a very easy process because there is quite a bit of bureaucracy involved. First of all, people have to apply from outside the United Kingdom to come here. So before coming here they need to be granted a visa. In order to get their visas, they need to travel outside Ukraine because there is no British visa centre in Ukraine. So first of all they have to travel to places like Poland, France or Germany and apply for UK visas there. They give their biometric data and then just wait for their visas to be processed. That can take quite a long time. For some lucky ones it is not very long, for some it takes a long time. I have heard of several people who have actually given up hope of getting a UK visa and travel to some other country or indeed back to Ukraine.

Once they're here, the process can be quite difficult for those newcomers. So this is part of our mission - to try and help them. We give them a one-stop, single point of contact where they can get all the necessary basic information - where to go, which services to apply for, and where to apply for those services.

I think the most important thing is for these Ukrainians to remain connected to their homeland because they can end up in very different conditions and situations. Sometimes we have seen these people come in [to the centre] just to speak Ukrainian instead of getting their questions answered. So I think the essential part of it is to keep them together as a community so that when it's time to go home they will remain integrated to Ukraine rather than detached from it.

The main challenge is, perhaps, that these people are really very stressed and they have been through a lot and sometimes when we hear these stories it can be quite shocking.

Please keep your hearts and doors open to Ukrainians because this is the decisive ground where history is actually being made. Ukrainian people are not coming here on a whim. They have to come here to find refuge from what's happening in Ukraine. Russian forces, the Russian government, have been deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and that includes residential quarters.

These people are actually on the run from something that's unavoidable. They had to leave in order to survive, and by helping these people, the British nation is helping the Ukrainian nation survive - a fellow European nation. There is a lot of hardship but I would say that Russia is fighting a war against the whole of the civilised world and not just against Ukraine. It is very important to support Ukraine by supporting Ukrainian people.

The United Kingdom is at the forefront of supporting Ukraine and we would be absolutely grateful if British people continued this support to Ukrainian families at this grassroots level.

Practically all of them are asking, "Okay, you're working at the centre, you probably know the situation better than us… When will it be safe to go back home?" We should remember that most of these women have left their men fighting in Ukraine. So, of course, they want to go back home, and they want their families reunited. Most of all, they want their old life back - their normal, peaceful life.