Ukrainian charity founder ‘grateful’ to Wiltshire for refugee support
Max Maslennikov is speaking in Salisbury about the civilian response in Ukraine
The founder of a charity supporting displaced people in Ukraine has spoken of how grateful he is for the Wiltshire’s help in housing Ukrainian refugees.
Max Maslennikov founded the charity Reconstruction Ukraine and has been in Salisbury this week ahead of speaking at the Medieval Hall about the civilian response in the city of Dnipro.
Wiltshire has been welcoming Ukrainians since the war with Russia broke out in February 2022.
“English people are so fantastic in their support. We are extremely grateful to you as a country,” Max said.
He says Ukrainians hope Britain can be a partner of the Ukraine for years to come, saying we can ‘mentor’ the country and help the create a better society.
Short-term fix becomes long-term project
Max has been invited to Salisbury by the city’s Community Hub for Ukraine and will be speaking this evening (Friday 24th November) about how people in Dnipro are responding to the war.
Dnipro is located in the South East of Ukraine, around 300 miles from the Capital, Kyiv.
Max’s charity set out to provide short-term shelter for those displaced from the villages around Dnipro, before they moved on to Western Ukraine and other parts of Europe.
However, that approach need to change when it was discovered that people remained in the city in the hope of returning when their homes became hospitable again.
“We started to create a programme of long-term housing,” Max explain, “We’re renting facilities from the Government, renovating them and provide them to people for five year. They only pay utilities.”
More than just providing homes
But problems have arisen from having people remain in the city.
Max says many of the displaced people are not used to living in a big city, many having lived their lives in smaller villages.
He said: “We’re starting to reintegrate them, we provide them with upskilling, reskilling, education, help them find a job to buy appropriate clothes and teach how to communicate.”
Max believes that giving people some semblance of life before the war is more beneficial than psychological interventions that have been funded by others.
“The psychological support is good, but you have to remove the reason (for the support.)
“If a family doesn’t have guarantee for living, this is very stressing. You can pay a million dollars for a psychologist, but you won’t remove the problem. So, we are trying to remove the problems.”
Giving people a reason to return
Max’s charity is working hard to ensure that the people who have left the Ukraine can return with something to work with.
And while he admits some of those living abroad may find a higher quality of living in other parts of Europe, many Ukrainians are willing to return home.
“They will get back home, but they have to have a reason for that,” he says, “That’s why we are creating this housing, not just for displaced people in Ukraine, but so we can host people from abroad, to let them start with something.”