As the situation develops, we will be faced with challenges related to a long-term displacement of such huge masses of people. State support will be indispensable, but CSOs will still carry out much of the work, as they have been doing up until now.

As of May 5th 2022, it’s estimated that over 5,7 million Ukrainians have been forced to seek safety in neighboring countries since Russia escalated the war against their country on February 24th. Around 3,1 million have gone to Poland, over 856,000 to Romania, about 491,000 to Slovakia, over 452,000 to Moldova. The response they were met with was astounding even to the Poles, Slovaks, and Romanians and Moldovans themselves. The outpouring of kindness, countless food and clothes drives, people spontaneously driving refugees from the borders, others welcoming them into their homes, and citizens self-organizing on an unprecedented scale. 

We want to meet with activists from Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Moldova to discuss the current situation in their countries:

  • the challenges they’re facing and expect to face in the future,

  • the ways in which we can all join in and help,

  • as well as the sources of relief in which they find strength to carry on and keep helping.

Join us to learn more about the Civil Society’s role in welcoming and supporting the Ukrainian refugees and get inspired to act!

Date and time: 

Tuesday (17.05.2022); at 17:00 - 18:00 hrs CET

Who is it for?

  • Anyone interested in the current situation on the boarders but also in neighboring countries who are hosting refugees from Ukraine

  • Anyone who wants to learn more about the Civil Society's perspective and role in helping those affected by the war in Ukraine

  • Aid organizations involved or willing to get involved in support for Ukraine

Practical information:

The online event will last 60 minutes (45 minutes of moderated panel discussion + 15 minutes for a Q&A session with the audience at the end).

We are also planning to go LIVE on Facebook.

Those registered, however, will have the opportunity to ask questions to our experts and after the event they will receive the recording and additional materials to the email address provided.

Our Panelists:

Flavius Ilioni Loga is a Romanian social worker that has focused for the last 10 years on the integration of refugees and the complex reality around them in Romania. He believes in the goodness of people to remain human even in times of crisis and fulfills his mission driven by empathy, strategic sense, courage and goodwill. Flavius founded the LOGS Association - Group of Social Initiatives - which works in education, migration and the prevention of human trafficking. Since 2020, following the increase in the number of asylum seekers in Timișoara and Romania, Flavius and his team, supported by local communities, have developed a humanitarian support mechanism that has assisted over 8,000 migrants with food, medicine, clothes, blankets and sleeping bags, and provided access to hygiene facilities at Casa LOGS, a community center in the city. Since March 8, 2022, he’s been coordinating collaboration with the Social Services of Timisoara, the Timisoara Support Center for Ukraine, where so far over 2,000 Ukrainians, who have settled in Timisoara, have received housing, direct financial aid, Romanian language courses, access to work places, health care, and most importantly a welcoming community.

Myroslava Keryk is a historian, sociologist, specialist in field of migration of Ukrainians to Poland. Head of the „Our Choice” Foundation and Chief-editor of the newspaper “Nash Vybir.” In her daily work she combines designing and implementation of integration activities directed to Ukrainian migrants in Poland with research projects in the field of migration studies. She is an author of numerous articles and reports on situation of migrants in Poland, including on situation of Ukrainian women during Covid-19 pandemic. She is co-establisher of the Ukrainian House in Warsaw.

"Nasz Wybór" Foundation (“Our Choice” Foundation) was founded in 2009 by Ukrainians and their Polish to support Ukrainian migrants in Poland, help Ukraine migrants integrate with the Polish society as well as enable cultural exchange. Since 2014 Foundation runs The Ukrainian House in Warsaw as a safe and inclusive space for building bridges between Poles and Ukrainians striving to disabuse mutual stereotypes.

Since the escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian House in Warsaw transformed from a cultural and research facility into a crisis response center. So far, it has provided a diverse range of support to Ukrainian refugees: our hotline answered over 17,000 phone calls, website naszwybir.pl with all the necessary information available in Ukrainian; local reception and consultation point in Warsaw; a solidarity housing service matching over 5,100 Ukrainian families with Polish hosts so far, managing a database of 5,600+ volunteers supporting not only Ukrainian House but also other relief organizations.

In response to the urgent need, the Foundation together with the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia, has opened a Ukrainian school in Warsaw - SzkoUA for 250 Ukrainian refugee children providing an opportunity to complete the school year within the Ukrainian educational system.

In cooperation with other NGOs Foundation also provides direct support to Ukraine: purchase, and transfer of ambulances, medicines, professional first aid kits, finance a surgery facility in Lviv hospital. Over the last few weeks Foundation started to also develop cultural and integrational activities: culinary workshops, Easter Breakfast and a long-term program of the Clubs of Ukrainian House which includes Women’s Clubs – a safe space for Ukrainian refugee women in Poland to meet, seek support, and act together.

Ukrainian House in Warsaw is a small part of Ukraine in the big city of Warsaw!

  • Adela Tihlarikova from Mareena (Slovakia)

Adela Tihlarikova has been stationed at Vysne Nemecke SK-UA border crossing since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. At first as a member of the point of first contact team for refugees, later as its coordinator. Together with her colleagues from Mareena, they also coordinate the cooperation between state and civic actors in Vysne Nemecke.

Mareena is a Slovak NGO that provides guidance and support to refugees, people in need of international protection, and foreigners living in Slovakia. In Mareena we believe that a cohesive and accepting society is created by all its members. For that reason we are also trying to create opportunities for active integration of foreigners into society, support relationships between locals and foreigners and raise awareness of diversity, migration, and integration.

Svetlana has been the Program Director of AO Centrul de Drept al Avocatilor from October 2020. She has over 10 years of experience at UNHCR Moldova as program staff. She has extensive experience in helping refugees and asylum seekers, project management, and MEAL.

AO Centrul de Drept al Avocatilor (CD) is a public, non-political, non-profit association registered active 1997. LCA has more than 20 years’ experience in implementing projects offering free legal assistance to the applicants for stateless status, people at risk to be stateless, stateless persons, asylum seekers and refugees in Moldova. LCA has an exhaustive experience on advocacy interventions with authorities starting from evaluating individual cases on refugee status determination procedure and stateless status application procedure, to successful cases in the court on refugee and stateless persons rights.