Ukrainian children in Portugal without places in day care centers and kindergartens
Ukrainian refugees in Portugal lament the lack of places in day care centers and kindergartens for their children, a situation that makes it difficult for them to integrate, because they cannot take training courses, go to job interviews or accept jobs.
The alert came from the Ukrainin Refugees Association (UAPT): “In the case of elementary school children and adolescents, everything will go well, but with the little ones it is quite complicated, because there are not enough places for everyone”, Iryna Shkira told secondary school Lusa.
Going to a job interview or taking a basic course in Portuguese is complicated for those who have no one to leave their children with, admitted Ukrainians who arrived in the country in the last few escapes from the war.
Since the beginning of the conflict, on February 24, Portugal has welcomed more than 35,000 people: two out of three are women and about 10,000 are children under 14, according to data from the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).
Last week, Lusa questioned Solidarity and Social Security about how many children are in day care centers and kindergartens and how many remain without vacancies, but so far has not received an answer.
The Government changed the limit of children in daycare centers, but allowed two per room, with no significant maximum limits on the private establishments that can be made.
“We don’t receive children, but we don’t receive more because there is no security for co-payment. response”, lamented Susana Batista, president of the Association of Day Care Centers and Small Private Education Establishments (ACPEEP).
In the absence of financial support, Susana Batista added a lack of coordination: “Just as families are experiencing a lack of coordination, directors who warned about the lack of municipal management of their availability, but there was no training to understand where there was a lack of coordination. or where it was needed”.
Daria arrived in Portugal in March and still hasn’t managed to find school for her children, aged 2 and 4. She lived in Kharkiv until the war forced her to say goodbye to her husband, brother, mother and mother-in-law. She ran away with her children and almost nothing she was able to carry in a suitcase.
A specialist in software quality lives in Lisbon and keeps the job he had in Ukraine: “I continue to work ‘online’ and ‘part-time’. when they wake up, I watch TV”, I tell Lusa.
One of Daria’s goals is, precisely, to be able to communicate with the locals: “The Portuguese are very welcoming, but they’ve already met people who don’t know English better and it was very complicated”, he said.
Concerned about the lack of courses offered so that they have no one to leave their children with, the Refugees Association with the Ukrain at the Vodafone Foundation provides an answer.
At Vodafone’s playhouse, in Lisbon, adults have daily Portuguese or English classes, while children are transformed into a gigantic room into a play space.
“We set up a kindergarten in record time. On average 15 to 20 children every day, like mothers in class”, explained to Lusa Ana Mesquita Veríssimo, responsible for the Vodafone Foundation, who even brought her children’s toys to work to cheer up the work. the children’s room.
On the second floor of the baby building there is now a nap room, an improvised soccer field, a television “with Russian channels blocked”, giant pillows scattered on the floor and many toys, including a cardboard brick castle. made by the children who placed a Ukrainian flag on top. There are small-size colored plastic tables and chairs, colored pencils and drawings pasted on the walls.
“The Foundation does a fantastic job and this initiative also teaches children Portuguese”, adding Iryna Shkira that one of the four educators is Portuguese and “allows a lot of things done, such as knowing the names of the colors or the fruits”.
Oksana, Alina and Nataliia are three other educators, also Ukrainian refugees. “It was a way we found to give jobs to those who were arriving”, says Ana Mesquita Veríssimo, adding that it is also good for children to have someone who speaks their language.
But the first few days were not easy. The kids didn’t stay here alone and the mothers came in between classes to see if they did well. Remind me of the little girl clinging to her mother. They were more scared.
The educator who arrived in Portugal fleeing Odessa on March 22 guaranteed that “now the kids come running to this space”.
7-year-old Vsevolod is such a case. “He spends the day asking when is he going to come here, because here he has boys to play with”, outlines Katya, the mother who was born in Lugan 33 years ago.
The seamstress from Lugansk is now unemployed and believes that learning Portuguese can help her find work and so also enroll in the Vodafone course.
Iryna Shkira would like more institutions to be with projects similar to the Vodafone Foundation. “The Portuguese are very supportive, even if they believe they are the most welcoming in Europe, but it was good that others could have initiatives such as courses with an appeal to stay with children”, or the association’s official.
While Katya learns, she plays with the other children, just as Daria feels rested during the hours studying in classes in which Danilo and Sofia are in the care of the teachers.
Despite the Ukrainian educators, there is no mention of what was left behind. “We don’t ask the children, we don’t want the recording reasons to have been caused”, explained Ana, the Portuguese teacher.
But the past appears, sometimes, in the drawings. “A boy made a house and then painted it all in black and that had been bombed around.