Welcome Bureau’s ‘First Family’ Return to Kyiv

After months of soul searching and heartache, Welcome Bureau’s ‘first family’ have decided to reunite in their home city of Kyiv. Mother and Son returned for a summer break with Father and Grandparents, friends and extended family in Kyiv, and, having secured a school place, made the very difficult decision to stay. Their thinking is that this Winter will present the greatest challenges of the war to date and that they need to be together as a family in order to face them.

The maternal Grandparents escaped to Kyiv from their home town, Mariupol, in the early months of the war under traumatic circumstances and, like an estimated two thirds of the Ukrainian adult population, are left to co-exist with the mental scars of their experiences. It is heart-warming to think of the whole family united geographically and the joy is plenty visible on their faces in the photos and videos we have recently received.

The family have moved to a new house on the edge of the city, which features a bomb shelter room just big enough to house a bed into which Mother, Father and Son decamp most nights when the warnings are received.

We unite in sending our loving thoughts to them all and our earnest prayer that they stay safe.

Welcome Bureau’s ‘Second Family’ Move Closer to School and Work

In light of the above, we have moved our ‘second family’ to the flat occupied by the ‘first family’ over the past twelve months, which places them in a more convenient location for Son’s school and Mum’s work. They have settled in beautifully and are busily exploring their new area.

Our sincere thanks go to the choir member and her husband who made the first house available to us to let in St George and allowed us to get the charity off the ground back in the summer of 2022. It was a huge and generous-spirited leap of faith for which we are enormously grateful.

Clifton College Makes a Second 100% Bursary Place Available

Welcome Bureau was asked in the Spring to help very close family friends of our ‘first family’ move to Bristol from London, where they had lived for two years. Father has been on the front line since day one of the war and, having launched her Son to university in the US, Mother was seeking a more affordable city than the capital for herself and her Daughter. Shockingly, all approaches the family had made to schools in the state sector in Bristol had been met with a ‘no’ due to being at capacity.

Welcome Bureau introduced the family to Clifton College, who responded with huge generosity and made a fee-free place available. The Daughter started in September and has thrown herself into every aspect of school life with enormous energy and enthusiasm. We at the charity are deeply grateful for the College’s commitment to the refugee community and proud to share the school’s vision that education lies at the heart of facilitating the long term health and security of displaced families.

Welcome Bureau Helps Find Accommodation

Unlike our ‘first two’ families, who have been wholly dependent on state benefits, topped up by financial grants from Welcome Bureau, to access accommodation, this ‘third family’ is financially independent and seeks no monetary support from the charity. Mother currently works as an on line Consultant in the hospitality sector. Nevertheless, finding decent housing and persuading landlords to rent to people with refugee status is no easy feat. Fortuitously the landlord couple who had made the flat available to our ‘second family’ also happened to have property coming to the market this Autumn. We were able to make the introduction and the ‘third family’ is now happily ensconced within walking distance of school.

Although there is no financial grant being made to the family, Welcome Bureau has provided invaluable wrap around care with getting their new life up and running and we wish Mother and Daughter all the very best as they settle into living in our City.