Another visa application approved!

We heard from from V who is going to a sponsor family in Burnley. She said, "A good present for Easter." She and her sponsor family have already arranged her flight and pick up at Manchester Airport on 1 May. We can only hope that she will have a better reception.

There is no rhyme or reason to the visa application process. V's application was completed on 3 April, whereas visa applications on 30 March have had no response yet.

Today we had the usual morning, chopping and serving fruit, and afternoon, 'setting up stall' in the food tent with our poster in Ukrainian, soon having a queue of people - no question of being moved on now that everyone knows us. There was a hail storm, even a clap of thunder, mid-afternoon, which was deafening on the tent canvas, and even more refugees than usual crowded in to keep dry.

We spent some time talking to a vulnerable young woman who has just had her visa application approved and has a sponsor somewhere near London - she's not sure where and hasn't had any contact with them, other than being informed that they're going on holiday until 28 April! This means that, unless she can find more accommodation in Krakow, she'll have to go to Berlin and sleep on a friend's floor whilst waiting. 

One irate Ukrainian woman approached and berated us for the length of time it's taking for her visa application to be approved - over 30 days - which she said was making her very angry. We told her (via our Ukranian interpreter) that it makes us angry too! If it had been one of our sponsors we would have been asking them to get onto their MP long ago.

Both these stories illustrate the benefit of having a more personalised linking of sponsors and refugees.

We've decided that there is still so much work to be done here that we'll try to stay another month or so if we can find affordable accommodation. Our hostel room will not be available and prices for even the smallest bedsits have doubled in the time we've been here.

The clocks that show the times of different cities in the world have replaced Moscow with Lwow (Lviv), where we hope our friend, Sofiia, and her children have arrived safely.

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