On Thursday, 21 December, Kyiv hosted a roundtable discussion, The Role of Communities in Supporting Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Ukraine. Representatives of refugee communities in Ukraine, government authorities, including the State Migration Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Social Policy, the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, NGOs and civil society organizations, the International Organisation for Migration, and UNHCR attended the event.
At the beginning of the roundtable, Svitlana Butenko, Head of Legal Assistance to Refugees and Asylum Seekers at R2P, and Christophe Baux, Senior Protection Officer at UNHCR, welcomed the participants.
At the event, the participants discussed refugee and migrant communities in Ukraine, their structure, management, capacities and role in integrating refugees and asylum seekers into Ukrainian society.
Niyara Mamutova, Head of the League of Muslim Women of Ukraine NGO said:
"We primarily support Muslim women who come to us. We also cooperate with other organizations in charity, eco-activities and various events. For example, we invite people to our Hijab Day to refute stereotypes about Muslim women and join other NGOs to share experiences. For instance, we cooperate with state institutions to support youth and national minorities. For example, in Zaporizhzhia, I was a member of the coordinating council of national minorities and communities in Zaporizka oblast. We are currently establishing similar cooperation in Chernivtsi.
In general, we help Muslim women and not only them — we also support other communities and IDPs. For example, when people were travelling from east to west, our three centres became shelters for them".
She added that the organization faced new challenges and problems due to the full-scale invasion.
Niyara Mamutova, Head of the League of Muslim Women of Ukraine NGO aded:
"We faced the fact that we lost many volunteers because many Muslims went abroad; some moved from east to west. For example, very few of our volunteers remained in the east, and they bear much responsibility and work hard in those regions. And we need, for example, seminars and trainings on burnout because many people are helping the Armed Forces and IDPs and are losing their resources".
Hanna Lukashevych, Community Outreach Specialist at R2P, presented the study's results, Community Organizations: Resources for Protecting Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Ukraine. It is the first mapping of refugee and migrant communities in Ukraine. It was launched on the evening of a roundtable discussion with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners, Neeka, Rokada, and Tenth of April, and was held by R2P.
One of the communities featured in the study is the one in Drohobych, Lvivska oblast, with most of its members being displaced persons from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
Ernes Asanov, head of the Ihsan-Sincerity NGO explained:
"The existence of our community is also aimed at showing who we really are, thus making Ukraine less susceptible to propaganda. We want people to understand each other, see each other, not be afraid of each other, and always be able to communicate".
A separate block of the event was dedicated to discussing ways to strengthen communities. UNHCR's Senior Protection Officer Christophe Baux presented recommendations to improve their potential use. Participants discussed recommendations for the authorities, international and national organizations, and communities.
Svitlana Butenko, Head of Legal Assistance to Refugees and Asylum Seekers at R2P:
"Our roundtable has become one of the few platforms for refugee communities to communicate with the authorities and the public during the years of the full-scale invasion. Our goal is to help communities become more visible, influential and successful. To do this, we have developed mapping and recommendations. We will try to implement them in the future".
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