Ukrainians in Tatras: summer of solidarity
Dates: June-August 2022
We need: 36 000 EUR
We got: 12 000 EUR
Donors: Donio foundation
Project focuses on linguistic, social and economic integration of Ukrainian refugees who decided to stay in the High Tatras region into the hosting society via a set of educational, mentoring and cultural activities aimed at improving communication between culturally and lingually close Slovaks and Ukrainians, understanding of the specifics of Slovak lifestyle and approach to work and education. The project will promote positive examples of kind relationship between Slovaks and Ukrainians, motivate Slovaks to support refugees and assist Ukrainians to be active members of the society, not only recipients of help.
In order to integrate refugees in Slovakia, a set of activities are proposed to allow them to find suitable employment, to support self-realisation, to build mutual 
friendships and to boost their morale and spirits. A special attention is paid to the care of children and their well-being.
In June-August we plan the following activities:
- Support of a call-centre which was created to help with a wide range of needs of refugees lodged in the region. It includes a centralized database of refugees and their circumstances and helps to respond individually to evolving needs of refugees from the moment of their arrival in the region and through the period of their integration into the working, social and cultural environment. Thanks to the established call-centre, different organisations proactively identify and verify the needs of refugees on the basis of regularly reviewed processes and could flexibly propose individually-tailored and
adequate help; - Slovak language intensive courses for 120 p.
- Organisation of half-day care for 40 small children to allow for 30+ mothers to get a part-time job;
- Programmes for adaptation and psychological support of women: 12 nordic walking tours x 20 p., 12 art-therapy programmes x 15 p., dancing and yoga lessons 30 x 15 p.;
- 20+ tours with guides and volunteers for families;
- Art-symposium „Harbour of support“, 3 master-classes for cooks, inclusion of dishes of UA cuisine in the menu and 5 days of UA culture in 5 restaurants in Tatras as symbolic cultural bridge and celebration of SK and UA art, music and culinary heritage
In March a spontaneous partnership of 5 SK and 1 UA NGOs was created for providing lodging, food, transport or adaptation activities for refugees coming to Uzhgorod and to the High Tatras region. We created a multi-task team (including 4 active refugees and 4 SK multi-lingual leaders), established a call-centre in order to provide a set of services for 1500 refugees from the first welcome at arrival to sharing information about possibilities for lodging, medical services, migration issues, employment, sport, cultural and education activities. We see as very important for integration that refugees, mostly mothers with children get courses of Slovak language and find ways for children care of during the working day with adequate activities, so mothers can be employed, i.e. in tourism sector. Already 120 refugees started to learn Slovak. We organised assistance with employment for more than 150 people, provided humanitarian aid (first of all food for children in our region and Zakarpatie) for total sum more than 40 000 EUR.
Co-funded by the Donio Foundation