Ukrainian Students

“We are asking for your help to break down barriers, contribute to cultural education, and give some young people relief from the consequences of conflict. Since December last year, a Ukrainian teacher, a doctor in exile, and a Scottish artist have been using the internet to run an online conversation club for pupils from a small Ukrainian town called Lyubotin, near the city of Kharkiv in the east of Ukraine. We would like to give these children and others the chance of a break from the conflict and to actually visit some of the places we have been talking about online.

We need to urgently raise some money to make this possible.

The local council in Ukraine will pay for the international travel. We have suitable accommodation and a possible activity programme with qualified instructors arranged with Barcaple Outdoor centre near Kirkcudbright. The families of the children are also contributing to the trip as much as they are able. We need help with UK government visa costs, and to help pay for the children whose families do not have the resources to give them this relief – especially those children whose parents have died in the fighting. The parents of the group cannot leave the country because they have chosen to fight for the freedom of their homeland on the battlefield and in other volunteer activities with the “Help Lyubotin” volunteer group.

Who are we trying to help?

The group come from Lyubotin, near Kharkiv in the East of Ukraine. They are all connected to the Ukranian local volunteer organisation called “Help Lyubotin” who have been working with Dumfries organisations like “Mool”, “The Ukranian POW chapel near Lockerbie”, and “Quartz at St Johns Dumfries”. The group is made up of two teachers and 17 children and young people between the ages of 8 and 18. Most of the pupils are secondary school age, the youngest are the teachers’ own family.

The group we are wanting to help:

There is 16 year old artist, who started out as the youngest volunteer in the country. Her dad is on the front, her mother is the founder of a volunteer foundation and her brother is a volunteer. Two English teachers at the school, one of whom has leave to remain in the UK but who has returned to Ukraine to teach in the school. An 18-year-old and a 15-year-old brother and sister, whose father died at the front, are also seeking help. A 15-year-old boy whose mother always bakes sweets for soldiers. A 13-year-old girl, whose father is a military man, stepfather is a volunteer, and mother volunteers to help another often overlooked casualty of war – the pets and other animals.”