This is another story about the residents of our "PrykhystOK" in Uzhhorod. Like the previous ones, this story is special because its heroine has already visited us, but not as a resident, but as a volunteer who conducted master classes for children together with the team of the NGO "Happy Children".

Meet Nadiya Kurochka, 35 years old, from the city of Balakliya, Kharkiv region, and her two children, Vasylisa (10 years old) and Glib (8 years old). She has been staying at the temporary accommodation facility for IDPs of the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya since the beginning of July 2023.

– We left our home a year ago, and all this time we lived in Uzhhorod, renting a house, but due to family circumstances, I was forced to look for more affordable housing options. Fortunately, we came across the "PrykhystOK", which had a place for us, and this saved the situation.

Nadiya’s hometown has been occupied since the beginning of the full-scale russian-Ukrainian war, and the family has lived under occupation for several months, then escaped to a neighboring village.

We have lived in my parents’ basement in the village for a month. Although enemy troops came there, they did not stay there all the time, so it was safer in the village than in occupied Balakliya. Despite everything, it was scary – we heard shelling, and you don’t know where the rocket is going this time. Because of the fear for the lives and safety of the children, we decided to leave, to leave at our own risk, because there were no humanitarian corridors, only rumors and stories from neighbors who were going to buy food.

According to Nadiya, they were going nowhere but to the west of the country, feeling that it would be safer there. It took them four days to reach Uzhhorod, where they were able to stay for a few days in a rented apartment of their relatives. The family had never been to Uzhhorod before.

From my first days in Uzhhorod, I volunteered: first I worked for a UN project, then I joined the team of "Creative Volunteers of Uzhhorod", and then – the NGO "Happy Children", with which I still cooperate in various areas of work with children. I am talking about organizing children’s camps, running an educational club where we prepare children for middle school. It so happened that some of the projects – the aforementioned children’s camps, workshops, and excursions to the "Aquarium" – are implemented with the support of the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya, so we knew each other a little, which ultimately helped me a lot. But all these activities are new to me, because before the war I have worked in the civil service at home, dealing with social protection of the elderly and people with disabilities.

After the de-occupation of Balakliya, the city did not become safe – periodic shelling and significant amounts of mining by the enemy in the settlement caused Nadiya to worry, and she did not risk taking her children home. In Uzhhorod, they go to school and have made new friends, but they really miss their grandparents who remained in Kharkiv region.

Immediately after the de-occupation, I went to visit my parents and also came home. Everything is in relative order with the property – only the windows are damaged, but there is no sense of security. And there is also the factor of people, when you understand who had what position during the occupation, and now all these people behave as if nothing has happened. And if we talk about the future, everything is uncertain. I really like it in Uzhhorod, but it’s so far away from my parents, and I have no one else but them. I also have a grandmother there who is 83 years old, and I have to take care of her. So now I’m at a crossroads. On the other hand, I’m trying to reconfigure my own life: solve my health problems, pay more attention to my children…

Nadiya, like most of our residents, is a hostage to a number of life circumstances that are either difficult or impossible to resolve in the current conditions. That is why the help in the form of a roof over the head, although it does not solve all the problems, relieves some of the worries about the organization of everyday life and tomorrow. In fact, "PrykhystOK" is an opportunity to pull yourself together, assess own strengths, take a new start to plan life. Together with our partners, we continue to work to make life easier for people affected by russian military aggression!