Finding refuge
Couple opens their home to Nadia Golovchenko and her daughter Jenya, who have escaped the war in Ukraine, and this act of generosity has changed all their lives
Jenya Pylypenko is six years old. She has curly brown hair, two missing front teeth and a giggle that rises and falls like musical notes across a page. She loves ballet, gymnastics, swimming, drawing, and puzzles. She’s a big cuddler, and happy to slip her hand in yours if you offer it. She has just started at her new school, and has a new lunch box, a new uniform, and new shoes to take her there. Everything is new for Jenya right now – and for her mother, Nadia Golovchenko, 36; the two having fled the war in Ukraine to travel more than 14,000km to their new home and the family who have welcomed them into theirs.
Nadia and Jenya arrived at Karen and Mark Woolley’s Noosa home in Queensland on March 28 this year, and since then, Karen says, they’ve all been “getting to know each other” – Nadia and her daughter learning a little English, the Woolleys a little Ukrainian, and everyone trying to make each other feel more comfortable, and more at home in this strange, new world they have found themselves in.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 22 this year, the United Nations refugee agency says almost 5 million Ukrainians have fled their country, and the horrors the war has unleashed there.
Since February 23, Australia’s Immigration Department has granted 6000 temporary visas to Ukrainians, with the latest figures showing 1600 Ukrainians have now arrived in Australia. In Queensland, between 100 and 150 Ukrainians have arrived since March, and more will come as the war continues to tear the Eastern European country and its people apart.
Some are living with relatives, some, like Nadia and Jenya, have found a home to welcome them, and some are still looking for their safe harbour.
But all are disorientated, frightened, anxious and, as Nadia’s sister Anna Golovchenko, 41, who lives in Brisbane and is the volunteer emergency accommodation co-ordinator for Ukrainians in Queensland, says “out of our minds with worry” for those they have left behind.
The Golovchenko sisters are no exception, because while Anna may have been able to co-ordinate her sister Nadia’s and her niece Jenya’s escape from Ukraine, their mother Kateryna, 65, is still there. Somewhere.
Much loved Kateryna Golovchenko last spoke to her daughters on March 1, and the last time they heard – through an intermediary – that she had survived the relentless attacks on her Mariupol home was March 23.
So, as Anna says “it is not easy, no, it is not easy at all”.
Anna, who immigrated to Brisbane 15 years ago with her husband Andriy, 46, and son, Nickolai Bolotov, 16, and works as a project manager for the Queensland Government, says while they await news of Kateryna, the sisters find comfort in Jenya’s safety.
And just how Jenya Pylypenko came to live with the Woolleys in Noosa is quite the journey. One that was undertaken – Nadia says (through Anna’s translation) all for the little girl with curly brown hair and two missing front teeth.
War has come to Nadia’s home before – in
2014 when Russians and Ukrainians clashed in what was then known as the Donbas War.
That time, Nadia left her house in Donetsk to go to her mother Kateryna’s in Mariupol, thinking she would be able to return to her home in a few days, but never did, as Donetsk was all but destroyed in the conflict. That time she stayed on with her mother in Ukraine. But this time was different, Nadia says, because this time, she had a child. This time, as Anna translates, knowing how quickly things escalated in Donetsk, she wasn’t taking any chances with Jenya’s life.
“You have to run at the first moment, they went quickly and packed everything they could quickly. The first day they drove from their current home in Odessa to a friend’s house outside the Odessa region, then they drove to
the Moldovan border and stayed with a family. They asked for their help and they gave it, they took their suitcases and drove them to near the border and then they walked across.”
Nadia smiles reassuringly at her sister before she continues.
“She says she was very frightened because they could see rockets flying quite close and there were multiple attacks going on, and the Russians were targeting military airports.
“The place they were staying in the neighbouring country, Moldova was near an airport, and Nadia was very frightened for Jenya’s safety.
“In Moldova they moved into an empty apartment and they slept in the corridor with the lights on, because every time Nadia heard voices through a window she thought someone was coming to get them, to get Jenya.”
Nadia nods, eyes wide, if not understanding the exact words, fully comprehending the emotions behind them. From Moldova, they made their way to Romania, and then Brisbane. Nadia’s partner, Jenya’s father, was unable to leave the country because currently in Ukraine, all men between the ages of 18 and 60 must stay, in case they need to defend their country.
And Nadia has no words – in Ukrainian or English – for the sorrow of that. Or her fears for her mother. Nadia waited for 10 days in Moldova for Kateryna to meet her, before she had to leave, and Anna says not knowing what has happened to their mother is the hardest thing of all.
You have to run at the first moment, they went quickly and packed everything they could quickly … they could see rockets flying quite close
So, this is what the Woolleys knew of Nadia and Jenya’s story when they opened their Noosa front door to their new family on March 28. They say “family”, not “guests”, because as Mark Woolley, 60, says “you’re either all in, or you’re not”.
And the Woolleys are all in, and always have been, ever since they turned to each other one day not long after the war in Ukraine had started and said – just like many of us have – “what on earth can we do to help?”
“On one hand it’s an emotional decision, when you see things on the news like a 24-yearold Ukrainian schoolteacher being asked if she has ever shot a rifle, and saying ‘no, and I don’t know if I can’, or another young woman in a basement making Molotov cocktails saying she wanted to leave but had made the decision to stay to stand up for her country. We have a 24year-old daughter, and we just thought: ‘What if our girl Madi had to do that?’,” Karen, 56, says.
“And on the other hand it was also quite practical because we knew we were in a position to help.”
The Woolleys – Karen, a professor in medical research who consults for a number of universities around the world, and Mark, a former company director, now retired, for a medical writing company – decided they were well placed to do something. They just weren’t sure what. So Mark turned to Google.
He was eventually directed to the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations website and clicked on “offers, donations, accommodation”.
“We decided we would offer accommodation, because our children Madi (a social media and fashion influencer with 800,000 followers who has her own fashion label 23rd & Madison) lives in Sydney, and our son Jordan (a lawyer) who is 26, has also moved out,” Mark says.
The couple ran their idea past their children, who agreed with their parents’ plan to open up the family home to someone in need.
“It was a family decision, we told the kids they’d have to crash on the floor when they came to visit, and they said they’d be more than happy to. So Madi gave up her bedroom and Jordan gave up his – it’s Jenya’s playroom now,” Karen smiles.
“After we filled out the form offering our home, it all happened very quickly. We took a call from Anna, who asked if she could come up to Noosa to see if our accommodation was suitable and to meet us, and tell us all about Nadia and Jenya and what it all would entail, and then a few days later we met them.”
It was, Karen says, a little awkward for everyone at first, but as the days and weeks have passed, they are becoming just what the Woolleys hoped: part of Nadia and Jenya’s Australian family.
“I think what we realised very much from the start is that this is not like taking in an exchange student or friend’s children for a holiday. You have to commit for the long run, at least four to six months, while they sort out all the things they need to sort out, and you have to at no stage make them feel like this is anything but their home.
“When I saw Nadia for the first time with her broken leg (she had slipped while in Moldova) after that long flight from Europe, with that little girl by her side, I wanted to hug them but refrained because you don’t know if that is what they want or if that is just too much for them so soon.”
They hug now though, plenty. Jenya clambers up on the couch to nestle her head under Mark’s as they read together, and the two women – language barriers aside – have shared moments of laughter, as they each navigate the newness of their situation.
“We are all growing more comfortable, our vocabulary on both sides is improving, and Nadia has made it very clear she wants to contribute. She does everything she can, from helping with the cleaning to making Ukrainian blinis and borscht for us, and the effort to do that amid all her worry is not lost on us.
“We are very grateful to her. And Jenya …” Karen laughs with delight, “… Jenya is just joy. She’s happy to have cuddles and hugs, she loves playing chasey around the house.
“Her laugh is just a magical sound, like music, it gives us such hope to hear it in the house because it means that despite everything that’s happened to her, and to Nadia and Anna and all of them, you can find that joy in the darkness.”
The Woolleys are no strangers to that either. “We lost our eldest daughter Ashley, Jordan’s twin, in childbirth,” Karen says quietly, “and Ashley’s gift to us was to teach us that life is so precious, and that nobody knows how long you have here on earth. She taught us to appreciate every day, so that was our silver lining. And I guess that was what we were trying to pass on to Nadia and Jenya, to give them their silver lining.”
But both Woolleys say that one of the things that has surprised them about Nadia and Jenya entering their lives is that “we honestly believe they have given us more than we have given them”.
“We have a good life here,” Karen says “and so we wanted to share it, but they have shared their life with us too, and we are all the better for it. It’s been a long time since we had a six-yearold in the house and it’s delightful.”
“Exhausting,” Mark adds with a smile, “but delightful.”
There is, of course, sadness too, and Karen is mindful not to push too hard for information about what is happening in Ukraine, or the whereabouts of Kateryna.
“Every day we wake up with our fingers crossed for good news for them, and to be very aware that this isn’t ending anytime soon for them,” she says. “It might come off the front page of the news, but they are thinking about it every day, and they are so very, very far from home and the people they love.”
In the meantime, their new family – and the community they live in has put their collective arms around them.
From the library offering free English lessons to Nadia, to the council putting the family in touch with other Ukrainians living locally, the twin nine-year-old boys dropping off their toys for Jenya, and the little girl down the street who has become a playmate, Mark says the community is trying its best to make them feel as much at home as they possibly can.
Jenya Pylypenko started Prep two weeks ago. On her first day Nadia, Mark and Karen all accompanied Jenya to her new classroom, watching her slip her hand into her teacher’s, before she turned to wave at them – new uniform, new shoes, new life, two missing front teeth smile, and all.
They are thinking about it every day, and they are so very, very far from home and the people they love