Ready to welcome Ukrainian refugees
Wait to receive fleeing family pair
A kind-hearted Lanarkshire couple are set to take in two Ukrainian refugees – and their guinea pigs – as soon as their visas are approved.
Kate Laverty-fuller, her husband Martin Fuller, and dog, Jura, are opening up their home to a woman and her niece fleeing the war-torn country.
The couple, who live in Hamilton, are waiting on the paperwork for the visas and their sponsorship to be finalised.
And once that is complete, the refugees will make the trip to Scotland with their two guinea pigs, Melon and Julian.
Speaking to the Advertiser, Kate said: “We have a spare room in our house, it’s not huge and we originally were only looking for one person, but then we met a lady in her 30s and she wanted to bring her niece over with her.
“We told her we could make it work.
“The lady is planning to work remotely from Hamilton, she speaks English very well and her niece, who is 15, is planning to do her schooling remotely.
“We’ve taken the time to get to know the two girls as well, we’ve spoken to them and the 15-year old’s dream is to see a Highland cow. So we’re planning some trips around Scotland for them as well.
“Our neighbours have been great too – we’re planning to get Ukraine flags up when they arrive to make them feel welcome.
“The girls can only really bring what they can carry and they will have the animals, so we want to be able to give them a few nice extra things like fluffy socks and new pyjamas.
“Right now we’re trying to build a run for their guinea pigs and get their room ready. We put an appeal out for a few items and the response has been amazing.
“The people of Hamilton have all been so generous and people are messaging me offering to help.
“We’ve been blown away by the response and are thinking of setting up an Amazon Wishlist as well.
“One of my friends has given me a chest of drawers and other people have offered to give us things too.”
Kate said the process wasn’t easy due to the complexity and lack of information provided by the Scottish Government.
She continued: “The Government, I feel, has made the process quite difficult.
“They can’t come here without sponsorship and a lot of the forms are in English and are quite complicated, so they have to send some of their information to me and I’m helping with that.
“The visa has gone through, so it can take up to two weeks to hear back, but if there are any mistakes then we have to do it from scratch again. I feel like they are making it harder than it needs to be.
“The aunt’s forms were much easier than her niece’s due to her age.”
“We’ve supported different refugee charities for a long time, and we’re passionate about it and have always said we would open up our home for a refugee, and it was easier right now to take people from Ukraine.
“The world is a bit of a mess at the moment, with COVID and Brexit and the cost of living, so it’s nice to do a nice thing to make somebody happy.
“The parents of the 15-year old have decided to send their daughter to another county and that must be very scary for them to have to do.
“The woman sent us photos of the Ukraine countryside and it’s scary to think how much that has changed.
“The lady is living in one of the worst areas at the moment and is leaving behind her fiancee and her niece is living in Kyiv with her grandparents.
“The Homes to the Ukraine Scheme is essentially when you commit to six months of the sponsorship, but they are both welcome to stay as long as they want.
“I think there’s a lack of an official channel to help people that are interested in helping, and I think the Scottish Government could make it a lot easier if they wanted to. I think the process is easier in Scotland than it is in England.
“But I think there does need to be more information made available.
“We’re hopeful in the future that we might be able to help anyone who would like to sponsor a refugee, because the process isn’t the easiest.”
Kate, who works for AXA Health, has also said that her work has been great at supporting her, as well as donating money towards the ongoing Ukraine crisis.
She added: “Once a visa gets here then we can look at getting them to the UK.
“Right now all we can do is wait, as everything is a bit up in the air at the moment, it’s difficult to make plans to get to the UK because they have the guinea pigs and COVID restrictions, but the hope is they’ll get the train out of Ukraine and we can work it out from there.
“It’s horrible knowing the situation, they lose internet and phone signal regularly.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman told us: “Scotland stands ready to support the Ukrainian people, but those applying need to be given visas.
“The visa process is, of course, a matter for the Home Office, but there is a clear need for urgency if we are to provide displaced people fleeing the illegal war in Ukraine a place of safety.
“We’re doing all we can to assist those who’ve so generously offered to open their homes for Ukrainians fleeing the invasion of their country.
“However, Homes for Ukraine is a UK Government scheme and we have been pressing UK Ministers, in person and writing, on the need to speed up the processing of applications and the granting of visas for those fleeing Ukraine as well as calling on them to provide more data so we can link up people in Scotland with those arriving from Ukraine.
“We are working at pace to ensure Scotland can offer safety and sanctuary, including through our new guidance for local authorities on our super sponsor scheme, our enhanced disclosure checks for sponsors, and our legislation ensuring people who’ve offered their homes under Homes for Ukraine will not lose any council tax discount they would have been entitled to.
“We stand ready to welcome people to Scotland once applications become obtained visas.”