Tag Archives: refugee

Ukraine’s Refugees: Still There

2 Comments

Civilians murdered. Soldiers killed. Buildings bombed. It’s all still happening in Ukraine, even as we Americans let our attention drift to newer problems.

Those millions of Ukrainians who fled their homes? More than 90,000 of them remain in neighboring Moldova.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) from Moldova have been working hard to help them. Since the war began in February, the Friends of Moldova group has served 60,000 Ukrainians, supported 175 other relief efforts in Moldova and raised nearly $700,000. All of the RPCVs work as volunteers; several have returned to Moldova to provide direct assistance.

This past week, the Friends of Moldova, in concert with a Moldovan Rotary club, received a $25,000 Rotary Foundation Disaster Response Grant to buy food and other resources for refugees in northern Moldova.

North Carolina’s Rotary District 7710 initiated the grant after I described the urgency of the situation in a talk at the Rotary Club of Raleigh. Kim Dixon, who served with the Peace Corps in Georgia, and I developed the grant with her Rotary colleagues.

Friends of Moldova President Bartosz Gawarecki and other RPCVs also worked on the grant, which Bartosz will now oversee in Bălți. He lived there as a volunteer, leading a recycling initiative and youth sports programs, and returned recently from his Michigan home to establish a refugee assistance center for the region. That’s him on the left in the photo below.

Rotarians in Oklahoma City have been pursuing a similar collaboration with Moldova, inspired by another RPCV, Kelsey Walters, who married and remained in Moldova but returned to Oklahoma with her children recently after hearing explosions across the border. The two districts joined in a conference call hosted by N.C. Sec. of State Elaine Marshall, who oversees the state’s long-standing formal partnership with Moldova. We discussed how to expand these efforts and encourage other Rotary districts around the country to pursue similar grants. 

That’s where you come in, readers.

First and foremost: Please continue to donate online to the Friends of Moldova. Your support has enabled the organization to transport refugees from a freezing border, feed children and provide hope to families.

Now you can make an even bigger impact by working with a Rotary group in your area to pursue one of these grants. The Friends of Moldova cannot do this centrally; it needs supporters across the country to initiate grants locally. If you’re willing to help, please contact me directly and we’ll guide you through the process, which isn’t complicated. If you are a Rotarian or served with the Peace Corps in Moldova, that’s great, but it isn’t necessary. (I’m not a Rotarian myself.)

I wish I didn’t need to keep writing about this but, as you’ve seen on television, Russia’s aggression has been bloody and relentless. Ukrainians keep dying. Millions of innocent families remain dislocated, overwhelming their generous hosts across the border. As Americans, we can feel anger, outrage or despair about all of this, but I hope you will join the Friends of Moldova in providing something more useful: help.

[Top photo: RPCV Clary Estes, Ukraine Stories. Other photos: Friends of Moldova]

Moldovans Step Up

2 Comments

I am prouder than ever to have served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Moldova, whose people have been racing to assist refugees from neighboring Ukraine.

(Scroll to the end of this article to learn how you can help, too.)

Despite being one of Europe’s poorest countries, Moldova has stepped up in a big way, as you can see with some examples from places I know there:

Champa did her pre-service training in Costești, a village that has converted its tourist complex into this refugee center.

My training was in Bardar, which has opened a home for refugees.

We served together in Ialoveni, whose citizens are now working to help the refugees in various ways. This Facebook post offers them free dental services. 

We lived near Stella’s Voice, a home for young women in danger of being trafficked. They just opened their doors to several young Ukrainian women.

Ialoveni’s officials are cutting through red tape to assist the refugees, such as by quickly notarizing their travel documents.

Many of my Moldovan friends have been posting images to show their support for Ukraine.

Peace Corps Moldova has been helping, too, both as an organization and through its staff, some of whom prepared these meals for distribution.

The Friends of Moldova, a group of returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) and others, has launched a fundraiser to aid refugee support efforts, which are far more extensive than the few I’ve described here.

Ukraine RPCVs have been working on several fronts, from advocacy to fundraising, through the RPCV Alliance for Ukraine.

Amid my own outrage at Russia’s aggression, I have been inspired by the brave resistance of the Ukrainian people, and by the government and citizens of Moldova and other countries — including ours. 

There are many ways you can help as well. A good one you may not have considered is by supporting this groundswell of activity in Moldova. David Smith, an RPCV who still lives there, publishes an excellent newsletter that just listed several ways you can do this. If you, too, are outraged by what you’ve been seeing, then donate today — and please feel free to add other comments or suggestions below.

Slava Ukraini!

Top image: AP/Aurel Obreja

Refugees and My Mom

4 Comments

This is my mother’s passport photo taken in Berlin before escaping Nazi Germany to be warmly welcomed into the United States. You can see the swastikas on the stamp.

If the U.S. Government had banned her and she had stayed in Germany, my mother would have been murdered. You would not be reading this because I would not exist. Nor would my children and grandchildren. Instead, my mother grew up to become a proud and productive American citizen who contributed to her society in countless ways. She gave birth to my sisters and me, and we were followed by our children, their cousins and the next generation behind them.

Thanks to one of those cousins, my niece Juliana Collamer, for reminding us of this photo, which our family treasures. We have always been grateful to America. Today it is hard to feel proud of it.

#NoBanNoWall #NeverForget

Reposted from my Facebook page, http://bit.ly/2jiI9H3