Support group helps house 30 Ukrainian refugees on Isle of Wight
Sunflower Sisters is a organisation that helps refugees and hosts in multiple areas.
The group Sunflower Sisters has helped find homes for 30 Ukraine refugees on the Isle of Wight since they started in March.
The name comes from the fact that Ukraine's national flower is a Sunflower.
Sunflower sisters was organised by Alice Good, starting off as a small local idea to help female refugees, that grew rapidly and now reaches all across the UK.
Alice explained they have helped "roughly in the region of about 8 to 10,000, but to to that's just individuals, not families" find housing.
However the Sunflower sister services don't stop there.
"It goes beyond that because we have, we support the hosts.
"We also support women that we didn't actually place, but they come through to us for various reasons and that can be for support with getting to the UK support with their visas transports.
"So many other aspects or just really general support because a lot of these women.
They've totally, understandably, they've experienced high levels of trauma and they they their mission is to get their families to the UK, get their children safe, and then they come to the UK and then it's crash time because, you know, the whole the reality of what they've been through. And you know the the, the post Traumatic stress disorder we're seeing so much of that now, women suffering and it's really, really, it's really upsetting to sort of to see. And we just hope that that they are able to get the support that they can. But we do have a large number.
Their site has over 30,000 people on it, and so they have developed sister sites to help manage everyone.
As the project has gotten bigger, Alice has noticed more issues that need help.
For example, visa applications, housing people with the right hosts, and making sure those hosts are safe, the location of the hosts and more.
"More and more Ukrainian are coming to the UK, we're seeing other issues involved.
"One of these has been some women are finding themselves in crisis for various reasons.
"It could be that it's been a breakdown with the relationship between the hosts and the family.
"It could be safeguarding issues. It could be simply a case of it wasn't a good match because the location all sorts of things.
"So we have a Crisis Group which I've actually lead and with a large number of women."
Over the past 3 months the team involved in this group has grown rapidly to approximately 85 women.
Alice told us "this is not just about British women helping Ukrainian women, that's not what I wanted.
"What I wanted was that we would work together.
"So now we have a large team of women made up of British women, Ukrainian women and Russian women.
"Some of these women women have been placed by us (placed in the UK).
"Some of them are women that are still in Ukraine but wanting to help with all manner of things, working on the crisis team, working as translators, working as accommodation coordinators all kind of things.
"Support workers who work with sunflower sisters and some of these are Ukrainians who don't offer professional services, but just to be a listening ear.
"Some of them have got a background experiences as social workers, as counsellors, as therapists, and we have a large list of mentors.
"We will then bring these ladies in to support these women, and sometimes all it is needed is a Ukrainian lady, a familiar voice, somebody that understands what they're going through. Just a friendly ear."
"So some people will say to us, you know, why are you a women's only group? ...
"We're not a group that says we don't deal with men. When I set it up, there were many other support groups, Facebook groups, that were helping Ukrainian nationals.
"And I felt I saw with my own eyes a lot of safeguarding issues, a lot of women concerned about being approached by men.
"They worry around and not knowing who they can trust.
"And I felt that we needed to create a safe space for women and run by women.
"But having said that, we have many, many men that contact us privately. They can be male hosts that are happy to offer.
"They can be single men that maybe an older single man that's happy to offer a a room to another man or to an older lady. It can be men whose wife's aren't on social media who want us to help them
"It could be men from all different situations. So we don't say we don't deal with men, we just don't have men on our forum."
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Alice explained in more details some of the safeguarding issues they had witnessed in the past.
"There's a a range of different issues. So it can be that a young woman has been placed with a single guy and feels intimidated.
"It may be the case that them there hasn't actually been any issues, and no sort evidence of sexual exploitation or anything like that, but the woman feels threatened or feels uncomfortable in this situation.
"We have had instances where hosts have been drinking a lot of alcohol and the women feels threatened or feels feels unsafe.
"We've had situations where there have been women who have been, sort of, sexually exploited, where where the male host has made advances towards the women even when they've been in a family situation."
Alice told us what it has been like watching Sunflower sisters grow.
"It's been absolutely incredible. I mean, when I first set it up, I had absolutely no idea that it was going to grow to this magnitude.
"I really just thought it was going to be offering a buddy support system.
"And it's been it's been very powerful on many levels.
"And sharing people's stories with people sharing their stories with you.
"The dedication with the amazing team of women that work with me, because without them Sunflower Sisters wouldn't have been a success."
We asked Alice what it was like when refugees and host families got along, and she could see good relationships starting to form.
"One particular one particular case springs to mind? There was a young Lady, Ira who had a had a child and she wanted to bring her grandmother over.
"Gemma was the host offering in the northeast. And I'd I frequently get messages and they post on social media.
"They absolutely love each other. Gemma feels Ira now is a part of her family. The feeling is mutual and it just almost brings tears to your eyes."