‘Olesia is really happy here things through a different lig E. She is helping me see ght – it’s really humbling’
Aimee Stott has welcomed Ukrainian refugees into her home, but says more needs to be done to safeguard the Homes for Ukraine scheme to help out desperate families and potential hosts in the UK. Branwen Jones and Emily Withers report
AWELSH mother-of-two has shared the emotional experience of welcoming a Ukrainian mother and her son to her home after a “risk-filled” process.
Aimee Stott welcomed Olesia and her son to her home in April.
A video showing the two families meeting at Bristol Airport has made its rounds on social media.
But Aimee, from Bridgend, has described how the process that ensured Olesia and her son’s safe passage to the UK was lengthy and agonising.
The Homes for Ukraine scheme was launched in March, with the hope that tens of thousands of people would be accommodated.
Latest UK Government figures show that 86,100 UK visas have been issued under the scheme and around 27,100 Ukrainians have arrived.
Aimee applied for the scheme in March after a conversation with her two sons.
She said: “I remember vividly reading on the news that it had been announced that Russia was at war with Ukraine.
“I was really horrified by it and thought that I would never see a war with Russia in my lifetime. I tried to find out what my two sons knew about it – they are around seven and 10 years old. They had seen something on Newsround in school.
“We were talking about it in a general way, they told me they knew that Russia was trying to work its way through Ukraine and they knew that people weren’t safe.
“I talked to them about the Homes for Ukraine scheme and my eldest pointed out that we had a spare room.
“I told them that I had also been thinking the same thing. We had a discussion about it and decided we had to do it.”
Soon after, Aimee registered her interest with the scheme on the UK Government website, but then heard nothing.
Determined to help out in the crisis, however, Aimee took matters into her own hands and looked for a family online, which she admits was “risky”.
“Basically, it’s a bit like online dating,” she explained.
“You go online, you match with someone, you video-link with them and have a chat with them.
“You see if you get on and then sort out the visa. It is so risky because you give out so much personal information, it’s unregulated and there’s no guarantee that there is any longevity to these matches.
“Looking back, I realise I took a leap of faith. I remember one night giving myself a little talking-to, I thought, ‘This is mad that you are doing this’.
“But I remember the panic I felt and told myself this panic that you are feeling is nothing compared to theirs. I had to do it.
“I posted a little ad about myself and asked who needed help. I was contacted by several people who either went with someone who was better suited for them, decided to stay in Ukraine or decided to settle in a neighbouring country.
“And then Olesia messaged me and she literally just said the words – ‘Can me and my son come stay with you?’. The conversation was over Google Translate, everything was quite broken – she couldn’t write in English and obviously I couldn’t write in Ukrainian.
“We continued chatting and she said she had to go because there was an air-raid siren and she had to leave her phone.
“As soon as I read that, I thought I had to fill in a visa application at once. I told her, if she was happy with it, tomorrow or the next day when the scheme opens or when ‘Britain opens doors’ as she said, we will do the visa and that’s what I did.”
According to Aimee, filling in the visa form took around six to seven hours to complete – a process which included the use of Google Translate and Facebook Messenger.
“It was probably one of the most white-knuckle things I have ever done,” Aimee said.
“I was worried about her Wi-Fi connection and I was worried she would hear an air-raid siren and have to go.
“You can fill in the form for them,
but I wanted Olesia to feel in control over what was happening because I can’t imagine how out of control she must’ve felt in Ukraine.
“It might sound silly, but I wanted her to feel like she was saving her-self.”
The process of granting the visa took almost a month, which according to Aimee was “horrendous”.
She added: “Olesia tried to get on a train to Poland and it was cancelled – it was a horrendous process for her bacause she lost hope that she would ever get her visa granted.
"It was taxing physically, mentally and emotionally.
"Almost every day, I contacted Sened Members, MPs, the Home Office, the general visa helpline, I
tweeted and Facebook messaged.
“I spoke to everyone that I could think of in order to get some sort of update to give her – hope, a date, or anything, and I got nothing.” Eventually, the visas were granted. With the aid of Aimee’s Polish friends, Olesia and her son travelled via train from Ukraine to Poland and then took a flight from Poland to Bristol Airport. When Aimee finally got to meet the pair at the airport, she was overcome with relief.
“I didn’t think she was coming, I didn’t think it was genuine,” she explained. “I refused to let my brain accept that they were coming until they were here. When I bent down to look at Olesia’s son, she told him that I was ‘titka Aimee’, which means
‘aunty’ and is what they call the friend of your mother in Ukraine.
“Whenever the trains were cancelled and they had to go home and they were so upset, he would ask why they couldn’t see ‘titka Aimee’. He knew of me and had seen me on the phone.
“When she told him that I was ‘titka Aimee’, that’s when he hugged me. That was just magic, I just felt really grateful that he wasn’t afraid of me and that I’d come across safe enough for him to hug me.”
The family have lived at Aimee’s home for a couple of weeks now and have grown to “love Wales”.
But Aimee insists more should be done with the scheme to safeguard potential hosts and Ukrainian families.
She said: “We’ve done a lot of cooking together and we’ve done a lot of cleaning together because Olesia likes to clean, and we’ve been on a few shopping trips together.
“We’ll sit and have a hot drink together in the evening after the children have all gone to bed and we have a chat.
“She was really shocked that there was Welsh and English, she would ask why the street signs were in two languages and I had to explain.
“She loves Wales – from the very beginning she loved the house and the street. Every time she sees the sun set, she thinks it is beautiful.
“She thinks Bridgend is gorgeous and she is really happy here. She is helping me see things through a different light.
“It’s really humbling.”
Aimee added: “There’s a huge misconception that the UK Government actually selects families to be matched with hosts over here in Wales or in the UK.
“You actually find your own person to bring over, because on the visa you have to name a sponsor and name a guest.
“There are so many safeguarding issues about it because you have to give so much personal information yourself and they have to do the same. So many women and children are travelling through Poland and people know they are travelling without their husbands – it’s a human trafficking corridor, it’s just so risk-filled.
“My advice for anyone that has signed up for the scheme is to don’t give up – the visas will come, but rattle as many cages as you can because otherwise you won’t get anywhere.
“My other advice would be to make sure that you are willing to commit an unknown amount of time to help these people integrate into the community because they need an incredible amount of support and you need to make sure you can give that. There needs to be a portal where people can log in and check the status of their visa application.
“There needs to be a verified matching scheme, there needs to be a way for the UK Government to match Ukrainian families with hosts in the UK, otherwise there is going to be no longevity to this scheme.
“It has been the most stressful thing I have done in my life and I did not sign up for that. I had to deal with people from a war-torn country and I was completely out of my depth.
“They are here and they are safe. However, there will be some people that will struggle and there are people struggling with it right now.”
The UK Government has confirmed that sponsors will initially need a named contact, although they said that they would be working to help organisations to allow them to sponsor individuals directly.
The Government added that safeguarding was an “essential part of the process” in order to protect children from trafficking and other risks. The Home Office’s UK Visas and Immigration helpline can advise applicants on their eligibility and the application process.
A UK Government spokesperson said: “Thanks to the generosity of the public who have offered their homes to Ukrainians fleeing the war and through our Ukraine Family Scheme, more than 86,000 visas have been granted with over 27,000 Ukrainians arriving safely in the UK.
“We are processing thousands of visas a day – this shows the changes we made to streamline the service are working and we’ll continue to build on this success so we can speed up the process even further.”