Here, the future of Ukraine is taken care of. The day care center in Lisbon where the traumas of war are given a new color
Portugal has already taken in almost 12,000 minor refugees from Ukraine. Integration into kindergartens is not even an easy step, hence a group of Ukrainian women has joined the effort to create a day care center in Lisbon. Here, the traumas of war are overcome by play, without the reception of an unknown language. Problems are resolved willingly. and lap
“My husband asked me to please save our daughter. I told him that I was very scared, that I didn’t know what to do when going to a new place, to a new country. I do not speak Portuguese. I speak English, but very little.” It was on Ilona Kubenko’s lap that Eva, just four years old, crossed all of Europe to escape the war. Together, only with a backpack, with the essentials.
And it is to this lap that Eva returns again and again, whenever she needs comfort. Who the different days, less even than mother, those March 12, arrived in Lisbon with no one. Ilona, 29, was a teacher in Kiev. Now, she says, she helps as she can take care of 40 children. The conversation is put on pause by a girl who urgently asks him for help to go to the bathroom.
She is one of eight women who work here, all day, without pay in return. Because it is from this feminine force, for whom the smile of a child is what counts most, that this project in Lisbon was born: the Baby Shark daycare. The rooms fill with hope, painted in blue and yellow. Childhoods, interrupted before their time by the war, are resumed.
Ilona with daughter Eva
Ilona is 29 years old, she was a teacher in Kiev
The idea that filled a house
Tatiana Voitseshchuk, 25, is in the habit of traveling alone. The work, done on the computer, left her in Madeira. On the day she was going to return to Kiev, already on a stopover in Lisbon, she realized that she had no way of returning. “It was very tough. She was frustrated. She felt nauseous. She was afraid of anyone. she began to pray, to ask for a way to contribute with love. And three days later, I saw a message in a Telegram group saying they were looking for volunteers for a program with children.”
On the other side was Oksana Romaniuk, a Ukrainian businesswoman who has lived in Portugal since 2018. In Dnipro, she already had a daycare center. And she sought that, before the families that arrived en masse, they put this experience at the service of those who abandoned their homeland. That’s how she finds an old hostel, completely empty, in the center of Lisbon, which ends up being given away for free.
“We were four Ukrainian women, sitting on the floor, because there was nothing in these rooms. No toys, no toys, just the building. We don’t have a clear vision, only that we would help”, recalls Tatiana.
Tatiana is one of the Ukrainian women who launched Baby Shark daycare
the war in drawings
Corruption in the hallway is constant. Some only in stockings, sliding on the wood. There is always something to do. Portuguese and English classes, hours of reading, yoga sessions, drawings. Or, pure and simple, a free game, just because. There are girls who, after having their hair done, ask to wear a princess dress – like someone who believes again that it is possible to be the protagonist of a fairy tale. There are smiles, sometimes hidden by shame. And for the trauma of arriving in a new country, a new life, fleeing a conflict at such a young age.
“I get it from their drawings. sometimes, when I look at them sometimes, it confirms that art therapy makes sense. It’s subtitled. They talk about death, about blood, about punishment, all of that. It is a clear sign that they are traumatized, difficult to handle. They’re getting better, but they can last for years. It is a trauma for life”, says Tatiana.
Baby Shark daycare has at least one thing to avoid: worrying about the worry that is being done in a daycare where you don’t recognize a single word. “It’s a big stress when that happens. And here they can understand everything. And feel comfortable. They are happy here, you can ask the children how they are. They are happy because they can understand and play together”, says Ilona.
Shark is the mascot of the project
Children also take the opportunity to rest, despite the daily hustle and bustle.
Integration help
Portugal already, according to data from the Foreigners and Borders Service given to CNN Portugal, 11,948 minors received. And from the first days it became clear to the Ukrainian community that not everyone who needed a day care or kindergarten. Because, without having someone to take care of their children, these women cannot look for a job, earn money, reorganize their lives with the most basic things. The husbands, almost all of them, stayed in Ukraine to fight.
That’s why this group of Ukrainians gather strength with each new day. Today there are 40 children between the ages of three and six who spend their days busy and distracted. There are plans to integrate ten more. But the more space there will be, the more would come. “Our inbox on Instagram is full of moms asking to drop off their kids, even if it’s just an hour, because they don’t know what to do. They need to work. We tell ourselves that they should only have a backpack, that they have nothing. Is very difficult. In order to deal with matters, a strategy is needed”, explains Tatiana.
The 40 children who spend the day working here and trust
The impact of goodwill
Everything here is the fruit of good will, of donations. From the paint on the walls to the food, from the beds to the toys, solidarity lit up the faces of those who spend the day at Baby Shark. Income was a concern, but no need to guarantee. The accounts show that, to ensure the operation, up to 35 thousand euros. Most are already covered, but all donations – in cash or otherwise – are welcome.
One of the goals is to be able to pay the eight women, all of them refugees, who work here. “They work, they dedicate their energy and love. For things as simple as coffee in the morning or a t-shirt. Because it’s getting hot in Lisbon”, explains Tatiana.
Daily snacks are also an expense. The children learn to say Maria with Portuguese pronunciation, because the sugar of the cookie they enter for life. Feed them, play games with them, give them back their childhood. As educators they laugh. But he didn’t forget that, for weeks, they had been fleeing a war that none of them had asked for.
Snacks are also turned into a play environment
the fear of the street
Tatiana Voitshchuk did not, unlike the women with whom she shares her days, feel the war around her. “When I go to the street here in Lisbon and I hear some louder noise, I stop immediately. We don’t need a bomb to fall on our heads to realize that everyone we love is in danger.” Before the interview, her mother calls her to tell her the four boys the age they had to have that morning. Her mother didn’t want to leave Dubno, her father and over 25 years of marriage.
The parents, the men who moved to Ukraine, are a constant source of conversation. Children don’t forget about them. “They want to go back, they are always talking about home”, says Ilona. But the time is not yet. “When I talk to my husband and I can still come back, he tells me that it can still be dangerous for us. Here, we can be alive. But we need time, we all need time, to get used to this new life, to the whole situation in Ukraine and in the world.”
But until that day arrives, thank you. And you learn to see the good in what you don’t have, war. Tatiana has always traveled to discover new experiences. But it is, in this corridor of green doors, that she finds the destiny she always wanted. “My life has finally gained meaning. I am aware that now and serving others is what makes me complete. It is so much better to live this life.”
Children have already learned some words in Portuguese