Bluebells - being home

It's hard to describe our time away when someone asks, "What was it like?" - difficult and stressful at times, also rewarding, knowing that people trusted us enough to tell us their stories. But impossible to do justice to all the trauma and lives affected in so many ways.

It's probably easier to stick to concrete facts. Although lots of Ukrainians would rather remain in Poland or move back to relatively safe areas of Ukraine, like Lviv, and although we continue to hear about the problems with the Homes for Ukraine scheme - young women being taken advantage of, placements breaking down due to differences in expectations, lots of sponsors not being approved - we have, so far. helped to settle 9 families in East  Lancashire, Manchester area and Dorset, and none have broken down. One young woman moved back to Poland as she was offered a job she couldn't refuse but she had a really good experience of living with her sponsors in Burnley, and maybe this gave her the stability and confidence to apply for the job, successfully. I think it must be difficult to think of such things when your day is organised around endless queueing for food and other essentials.

A mother and daughter moved to Bridport yesterday. And, after the sponsor wrote to the MP and endlessly chased their visa  applications, a woman seriously weakened by lack of proper cancer treatment finally had her daughter's visa approved on Monday, 30 May, and they will be travelling to the UK next Monday. The applications were completed on 25 April. We still have  applications waiting approval from 12 April. The visa application system has not become any less frustrating.

We have received really worrying news from a very vulnerable young woman who went against our advice and decided to find her own sponsor. She seems to have ended up being a virtual prisoner somewhere in Essex. We're trying to help her to get to our area if we can.

Although it feels strange to be home, I enjoyed going back to my yoga class, then walking home with views of lovely, green fields and complete quiet. We hear that there are still bluebells in the woods...

Tomorrow is the first bank holiday for the Queen's jubilee (We thought all the flags were for us!!) and Trawden has a car boot sale, which will be an opportunity for us to promote the UK sponsorship scheme and, hopefully, gain some more sponsors...

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