Supporting Ukrainian Refugees in Hungary: A Collaborative Effort

 

A cikk magyar nyelvű változatát itt találja!

 

Young refugee mothers find comfort in Lutheran community centre Devai Inn 

When vulnerable people need support, there’s always room at the Devai Inn, a community centre run by the Budapest-Józsefváros Lutheran Congregation, a partner of UNHCR. “Our mission is to give complex help to newcomers and as a local community, to reinforce our Christian values of welcoming strangers,” says its leader, Pastor Marta Bolba.  

Based in a former factory, that used to produce orthopaedic aids in the past, in a Budapest backstreet, the centre has 5,000 registered beneficiaries, including 600 in need of cash and housing assistance. Fourteen paid professional staff and an army of volunteers work with the newcomers, who are mainly, although not exclusively, refugees from Ukraine.  

In 2022, when war broke out in Ukraine, the church found its main help centre in Budapest’s 8th district overwhelmed, so it opened a new branch to cope with the extra demand. 

Devai Inn offers a range of services and activities from Hungarian and English language courses to art therapy and clubs for teenagers, young mothers and older people wanting tea and conversation. At lunchtime, free hot meals are provided. At Christmas, Santa Claus visits the children.  

As the war drags on, Pastor Bolba sees more and more traumatised people. “War comes with psychological damage,” she says. “We can see the trauma – it happens in the souls of people. That’s why we organise events to ease that debilitating emotional pain.”  

One of Devai Inn’s genuinely soul-healing projects is the weekly club for young mothers.  

In a cosy room with a fairytale fresco, a group of Ukrainian mothers are swapping stories about their children’s bedtimes. Some have trouble getting their kids to go to sleep. 

“We are all individuals, not robots,” says Vita Larionova, the leader of the group. She cradles a rag doll on her legs to show one way of relaxing a child. 

This is a meeting of the mothers’ club at Devai Inn, a community centre run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church and supported by UNHCR in Budapest. Mothers with children too small to go to kindergarten can find support and good company here while their kids play. 

The 20 or so mothers who attend are all refugees from Ukraine and so is Vita, 44, who came with her husband Sergei, 48, from Sumy in June 2023. 

“Back in Ukraine, I was a midwife,” she says. “I come here to give advice about how to look after children.” 

It’s clear Vita enjoys the social aspect of the group as much as the mothers, who are chatting and sharing their experiences.  

 

 

“I really look forward to coming here,” says Inna Sadovska, 30, from Kharkiv region, in eastern Ukraine mother to two-year-old Artem.  

With her son Sasha, two-and-a-half, playing quietly at her feet, Liudmyla Mikaielian, 35, gets out her phone. She wants to show damaged buildings in her native Kharkiv. It turns out she is an architect.  

Alyona Komariska, 23, has made friends with Veronika Dorofieieva, 24, and their two daughters, Laura and Kira, both a year-and-a-half, run around happily together. Coming from the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, Alyona is bilingual in Hungarian and Ukrainian, which makes life in Budapest easier for her than for Veronika, who only speaks Ukrainian. “We help each other,” says Alyona. “That is what this club is all about.”   

Inna Sadovska brings Artem to the Devai Inn mothers’ group every week. “It’s better than a cold playground or being stuck at home,” she says.   

At age two, Artem is still too young for kindergarten, so the mothers’ group is a real lifeline for Inna. “We look forward to coming here because I can meet the other mums, and Artem can play with his friends.”  

Inna left Ukraine as soon as war broke out in February 2022. Her city of Lozova was in the firing line. “I was very afraid. There were explosions,” she says. 

Pregnant, she boarded an evacuation train to Hungary, where her partner Alexander, 33, was already working as an electrician.   

Inna gave birth in Hungary. The family initially lived in a hostel but later, with Alexander earning, they were able to rent a flat.   

Inna has picked up some Hungarian, enough to go shopping. But she misses home and plans to return to Ukraine as soon as the war ends. 

“We had a flat there; I had a job in a factory,” she says. “We want to go home – if our home is still standing. We hoped the war would end quickly but we have seen terrible, unexpected changes.”  

Veronika Dorofieieva is alone in Hungary with Kira, her daughter. The 24-year-old mother from Dnipropetrovsk region would be struggling to cope were it not for the support she receives from Devai Inn and its weekly mothers’ club.    

“I’m alone, I’m not working, and I can’t leave Kira on her own. This centre makes all the difference for us,” she says.  

Veronika came to Hungary in September 2023. “Dnipropetrovsk lies between Kyiv and Dontesk. I felt the war was getting closer,” she says. 

“Kira was four-and-a-half months old then. I put her in a sling and carried her all across Ukraine, by bus and train. Baby, pushchair, rucksack, I was loaded down with luggage.” And there was nobody to help her. 

Veronika’s mother is back in Ukraine, volunteering for the war effort, while her brother is a miner. Kira’s father is not much in the picture. 

Veronika used to work in catering and as a shop assistant but in the present circumstances, it is hard for her to get a job and money is tight. 

She is grateful for the material help that Devai Inn provides. “But it’s not just about the free diapers,” she says. “It’s about the social contact that I get here.” 

* 

Saturday school for Ukrainian children helps keep their language and culture 

For Ukrainian refugee children living in Budapest, Saturday is the day when they can learn in their own language, keep up their traditions and have fun outside the strict curriculum of everyday school. 

Some 50 children, aged 3-14, attend a Saturday school run by the Ukrainian Association “Unity”, where 13 teachers give lessons in the comfort of their mother tongue. 

 Unity existed as a Ukrainian community organisation before war broke out in February 2022, but it expanded rapidly with the arrival of refugees fleeing the fighting, says school coordinator Olesia Kuzo, 37. She came to Hungary from now-annexed Luhansk after Russian-backed separatists took over the eastern region in 2014. 

Among the refugees were many teachers, determined to be proactive. “In 2022, we got together and started our own pop-up schools,” says Olesia. “We had small rooms in the 8th district. UNHCR helped us from the start.”  

But Hungarian law requires parents to send their children to Hungarian schools. Now the Ukrainians have their own education only on Saturdays, but they enjoy more space at Real School, a private international school that makes its premises available. 

Small kids have kindergarten activities while older ones study Ukrainian, English, maths, history and geography. The library has over 1,000 Ukrainian books. 

“There’s no fixed schedule; we are spontaneous,” says Olesia. “We mix serious education with fun, and we have art and PE.” 

For Ukrainians, living abroad and unsure when they can go home, the most important thing is to hold on to their culture. “We must keep our traditions,” says Olesia. “For example, we have a different Christmas and Easter (Orthodox) and we always celebrate these holidays.” 

 

 

“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit,” says a quote from Bansky above the door of the sportshall at Budapest’s Ukrainian Saturday school. Inside, PE teacher Oleksandr Levkivskyi is throwing a ball around with a group of children aged 7-10. 

Oleksandr, 38, came to Hungary from Kyiv in late 2022, joining his wife and son, who had been here from the start of the war. Sports training was his second profession, as he was manager back in Kyiv. In Budapest, he quickly found work teaching sport in a Hungarian state school, as well as at the Ukrainian Saturday school.  

“I don’t speak much Hungarian but with sport, body language is everything,” he says. 

Today, with the Ukrainian juniors, he is starting with some serious exercises. Very gently, he corrects the posture of a little girl trying to do a push up.  

“These exercises help with coordination, flexibility and endurance,” he says. “Research shows that children who have physical education do better academically as well.” 

Oleksandr acknowledges that the children – many living with mothers while their fathers are back at the war – are traumatised. “They may be loud and aggressive, or anxious and withdrawn. Sport helps them to throw out negative emotions and calms them.” 

Oleksandr’s own son, Kyrylo, 9, is in the class. A cheerful boy, he says he doesn’t mind having his dad for a teacher. “It’s OK,” he says, adding that when he grows up, he wants to be a footballer. 

Oleksandr ends the class with a game. The kids stand in a circle, their legs apart. One has the ball and must try to get it through the “goal” of someone else’s open legs. The “goalkeepers” save successfully until one ball goes through. “Goal, goal,” shouts the “striker” and they all fall about, laughing. 

Alina Maksimenko knows that her pupils speak Ukrainian at home but if, while living as refugees in Hungary, they do not learn to read and write in Ukrainian, there is a danger they will not be fully literate in their mother tongue. This is why the 49-year-old teacher from Dnipropetrovsk region dedicates her weekends to giving classes at Budapest’s Ukrainian Saturday school. 

Alina comes from the Ukrainian-held city of Marhanets, on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station that is currently occupied by Russian forces. “As you can imagine, things are tense there,” she says. This is why she came to Budapest in March 2022 to join her daughter Polina, 27, already living in Hungary.  

In Marhanets, Alina taught Ukrainian language and literature to teenagers at a college. The kids in her class at the Saturday school are younger. “It’s different,” she says. “I miss the teenagers. But I like the younger ones too, and they are Ukrainian. I feel it’s important for me to help them.” 

The class of seven to 10-year-olds are doing various puzzles, depending on their level. Bogdan, 8, keeps slipping into Hungarian, as he has learnt the language well at Hungarian school. Elina, 9, is doing an animal-themed crossword. “Ukrainian or Hungarian, it’s all the same to me,” she says, although quietly she admits that Ukrainian is easier. 

Denis, 11, is from Zaporizhzhia. He is in Budapest with his mother while his father is away at the war.  

For Denis, the language puzzles are a bit too easy. Already something of a polyglot, he speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Hungarian, English and some Chinese. “But I like to come to the Saturday school,” he says.  “I have friends here and it is funny, in a good way.” 

* 

Ukrainian refugee choir welcomes everyone from enthusiastic beginners to professionals 

On a dark December evening, the sound of a Ukrainian Christmas carol floats on the cool night air. It is coming from the Budapest Helps! Information and Community Centre, where the Ukrainian choir Spivochi (Singers) is rehearsing. The choir offers comfort to the many Ukrainian refugees who come here for language courses and other support.  

“We got together in November 2022,” says choir director Tetyana Muromtseva. “The centre (run by UNHCR, IOM and the City of Budapest) wanted to set up a choir as something warm that could unite people, and they advertised for a director.” She was the ideal candidate. 

Tetyana, who comes from Transcarpathia and has been in Budapest since before the war, was a music teacher in a school. “Singing is my religion,” she says. “When we are sad, we sing, and we sing when we are joyful.”  

Newcomers were keen to join and there were no requirements. Anyone who wanted to sing was welcome. But refugees were coming and going, so the membership was not stable. Today between 22 and 24 women and men attend regularly. 

At first, some were surprised by the repertoire, as the choir does not sing the songs that were familiar in the Soviet Union. Rather, Tetyana is reviving very old Ukrainian songs, some even predating Christianity.  

One of the most famous Ukrainian kolyadki (carols) is “Shchedryk” (Carol of the Bells), a song set in spring, which in the olden days was regarded as the real new year. 

 

 

On of Spivochi’s members is Lidya Gilyn, 83, who had a long, hard journey to Hungary from Donetsk. “I have already forgotten what happened there,” she says airily, although she cannot hide the emotion in her eyes.   

Leaving the eastern Ukrainian city now held by Russian forces, Lidya went first to Kyiv and spent some time there. She arrived in Budapest with her son Viktor, 52, in 2023. 

Lidya, a widow and pensioner, was quick to join the Ukrainian choir Spivochi, although she had no musical education and had never sung before. 

“In Donetsk, I was a vet,” she said. “I graduated from technical college in 1962 and worked on farms, artificially inseminating herds of cows.” 

Did she sing with the cows? “No,” she says, “I was too busy.” 

But in the choir now, she sings with the altos. Lidya is a regular at the rehearsals, held at the Budapest Helps! Information and Community Centre. “Spivochi gives me life,” she says. “I feel alive, and I have friends here.” 

Soprano Kseniia Yarova’s story is completely different to that of Lodya. The 27-year-old Kseniia from Kramatorsk is the soloist of the choir, to which she brings a special gift, as back in Ukraine she had a promising career as an opera singer. 

“I was singing in four theatres – in Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv and Dnipro,” she says. 

A graduate of the Kharkiv National University of Arts, Kseniia was singing big roles, such as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen and Oksana in Zaporozhets za Dunaem, the first Ukrainian opera by the 19th century composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky.  

When war broke out in February 2022, Kseniia was working in Odesa. “The situation (in eastern Ukraine) became scary. My parents came from Kramatorsk and stayed with me. We were sleeping on blow-up mattresses.” 

Later, she got a contract to sing in Dnipro. “But it didn’t work out,” she says. “There were blackouts.” 

So, in June 2024, Kseniia came to Budapest, leaving her parents in Odesa.  

“At first, I was very depressed,” she says. “I didn’t want to sing.” But then she joined Spivochi. 

“Folk music is not my speciality, but singing is singing. It’s breath, energy and soul. And this collective is very friendly.” 

Getting ready for the rehearsal at Budapest Helps! Information and Community Centre, Kseniia puts on a beautifully embroidered blouse. “My Grandma Yevdokiya made it for me,” she says. “She sewed all my costumes for the theatre.” 

The choir starts to warm up. Bolstered by Kseniia’s strong soprano, their voices can be heard out on the street.  

*  

Menedék Association brings three decades of experience into helping Ukrainian refugees 

Menedék Association has been working to integrate refugees and migrants for nearly 30 years. Since 2022, it has gone up a gear to support refugees from war-torn Ukraine, nearly 40,000 of whom have received temporary protection in Hungary.  

The association offers social, educational and cultural programmes and in certain situations, links refugees to other organisations that can also help. “We are a bridge between Hungarian society and foreigners who come here,” says Dora Polhe, 40, an integration specialist.  

Menedek, a partner of UNHCR, began helping refugees during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. “Later, in peaceful times, we were supporting newcomers from third (non-EU) countries,” says Dora. “But the war in Ukraine created a special situation. We were dealing with much larger numbers and needed to increase staff and volunteers.” 

Dora, a philologist and fluent Russian speaker, was herself a volunteer translator before becoming a staff member at Menedek. Now she tries to fix the problems that can arise for refugees – everything from getting access to health care to finding accommodation – and if Menedek itself cannot offer solutions, Dora networks to find those who can. 

“I have probably helped hundreds of refugees,” she says. “Some recognise me when they see me on the street.” 

Dora is glad when the newcomers gain confidence and start to manage things for themselves. She sees it as her role to help them find their feet. 

 

 

Marina Beskorovaina, 32, from Zaporizhzhia region, is one of Dora Pohle’s clients. She is truly grateful to Menedek for various kinds of support, ranging from help to get new eyeglasses to finding accommodation and a kindergarten for her two children. 

“Menedek never turns me away,” says Marina, expressing particular appreciation for integration specialist Dora Polhe, who has helped her and even become a friend. 

Marina comes from a village near Enerhodar, site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. Back there, she worked in a supermarket. 

When war broke out in February 2022, she took a boat over the Dnipro River to Nikopol, then a train to Lviv, before finally making it to Hungary. With her were her son Nikita, then 2, now 4; her daughter Zlata, then one year old, now 3; and her sister Aleksandra, then 17, now 20. She left her husband and parents behind in territory later taken over by Russian forces. 

“I had no food, lots of luggage and didn’t know what to expect,” she says. 

Menedek could not itself provide accommodation but through the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, it helped Marina to get her present home, a room with kitchen and bathroom in the basement of a suburban house. “It’s decent,” Marina says, “although of course I miss home in Ukraine.” 

Marina has poor eyesight, so she needed help to go to hospital and get new spectacles. When this problem was solved, she was able to get a job as a cleaner in an age care home.  Meanwhile, Menedek also helped to arrange a kindergarten for the children. 

Dora comments that Marina has become quite independent. “If I point her in the right direction, she can do many things for herself now.” 

At Menedek, child integration specialist Zsombor Lakatos is the one, who eases the path of refugee children into Hungarian schools.  

When Ukrainian refugees first arrived in Hungary, they set up their own pop-up schools. But the law required them to send their children to Hungarian schools. This was a shock both for the refugees and the schools, some of which were ill-prepared to absorb large numbers of foreign children. 

“It was a learning curve for everyone,” says Zsombor, 41, a sociologist and drama teacher by training. “But the pop-up schools could only ever have been temporary. The kids had to integrate, and we had to find long-term solutions for them. The Hungarian schools realised they had to face the issue. They started providing extra classes.” 

Now nearly three years since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, things are getting easier for all concerned. Zsombor helps parents find the right school for their children in the right neighbourhood. 

“Once the child is in school, we try to be there, to help with onboarding,” he says. “Or if a child needs a note from a doctor, or indeed the care of a doctor, we help with that too.”   

Language can be a problem. If Ukrainian parents and Hungarian teachers speak English, matters are quickly sorted out but if not, Menedek’s intercultural mediators help with interpretation. 

Children pick up language quicker than adults, but they too need support. Menedek runs a course to prepare older children for high school entrance exams and its volunteers help children to do their homework in Hungarian. 

* 

Language classes are key to successful integration and future life in Hungary 

On a dark Friday evening, at the end of the working week, a small group of motivated adult students are poring over an exercise on how to go clothes shopping in Hungarian. Refugees who attend classes at Menedek know how important the language will be for their integration, and so does their teacher, Monika Bak. 

Ms. Bak, 47, a specialist in Hungarian language and literature and Hungarian as a foreign language, is the principal of a bilingual Hungarian-English school in Budapest. When she finishes her main job, she comes twice a week to Menedek to help newcomers with the notoriously difficult Finno-Ugric language. 

“It is difficult,” she says, “because of the grammar and the many irregular forms. But I try to keep it practical and there’s no pressure of exams. We can chill out and have fun.” 

Ms. Bak uses examples from everyday life. “When you are living here, you are hearing Hungarian all around you – the announcement of the next stop on the tram, the supermarket till that has just become free.”  

The teacher is proud of students who have learnt enough Hungarian to be able to get jobs. “Many are well educated, and they want to return to their professions,” she says. “Some even hope to take the citizenship exam.” 

In whatever way, Ms. Bak wants each of her students to be fulfilled. “I want them to be happy in Budapest and I think if they can use the language, they will be happier.” 

 

 

Gbolahan (GB) Bada regularly attends Hungarian lessons at Menedek because he needs the language to pick up the threads of his education and career. 

The 32-year-old Nigerian was in the final year of his medical studies at university in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, when war broke out. With millions of Ukrainian refugees, he fled to Europe, arriving in Hungary on 28 February 2022.  

“Eventually, I did manage to finish online and graduate, but I had no practical experience. Everything flipped and I had to make adjustments,” he says. 

GB arrived at Budapest’s Nyugati (West) station. “The first Hungarian I met offered me accommodation in his house,” he says, remembering with gratitude a man called Laszlo Szavay. GB now lives in a hostel run by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). 

Social workers at Menedek supported him through the process of getting a work permit and he now has a job as a hospital auxiliary. But it is not the profession he dreamed of and trained for. 

“I clean the surgical instruments, the theatres and the scrubs,” he says. “But of course, I want to get back to being a doctor. This is what motivates me to learn Hungarian. 

“I know enough to go shopping and live a normal life. But at work, it’s trickier, more technical. Colleagues say I am improving. All I can say is, ‘I’m trying’.” 

 

* UNHCR is truly grateful for the generous support of the Government of the Republic of Korea to its work for refugees who were forced to flee Ukraine by the war.

 

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