Ukraine 2025
Monday 24th February 2025 marks three years since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. From the start, Methodists have been supporting people whose lives have been thrown into confusion by the conflict.
What next for displaced families?
High Street Methodist Church, Harpenden, has been supporting Ukrainian families coming to the area to escape the conflict since it began.
The church offered support to both the hosts and the Ukrainians coming to the UK. “We quickly became expert in visa applications and travel arrangements. Our brave guests arrived and we supported them and their hosts with universal credit and school applications and later job and house hunting.
One of the families who came was Olia’s. Initially Olia and her two children and then, 6 months later, their dad was also able to join them. The girls started school and quickly picked up English. Olia worked as a teaching assistant in school supporting all the Ukrainian children who had arrived.
After spending seven months with their hosts the family were able to find a rental property in Harpenden. During those seven months there was much to discover, on both sides: sharing our languages (with some very feeble attempts at Ukrainian!), lots of shared recipes, customs and, thankfully, jokes too!
Many of the families who came to Harpenden in the spring of 2022 have now moved away: some back to Ukraine, some abroad to join family there and others, like Olia and her family, have moved elsewhere in the UK. Dad’s work took them to Manchester at the end of last year and they are settling into their new home and neighbourhood.
In recent conversations with Olia, she tells us that they are slowly finding their feet again in a new place, but they live with the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
Like other Ukrainians they can now apply for an additional 18 months to their initial 3 year visa but Olia tells us that this still leaves them with a great deal of uncertainty for their longer term future.
Their hope is to stay permanently in the UK as the girls are now well established at school and their lives feel settled. They remain very unsure of what going back to Ukraine would look like even if the war were to end. It would be another upheaval in their lives and a re-adjustment for them all. Olia also tells me that many Ukrainians believe they will now always live with the threat of invasion and peace may be short-lived.”
Let us pray for them.