It takes a village
An update on our work in Vienna, plus lots of recommended reading & listening. I walk very carefully onto the virtual minefield that is the Russian EU visa debate.
One afternoon last week I convinced my youngest to go with me for a swim on the Donauinsel. You walk under some car bridges to get to a spot where there are pontoons and you can jump into the water, which while not that warm, is very clean and extremely refreshing. I love the colors of this photo, they feel somehow slightly optimistic despite the chaos, which is, I think what I am feeling at the moment?
Yesterday, three of us — myself, a tax expert who speaks Russian, and another Russian-speaking volunteer I met at the train station, gathered nearly two dozen Ukrainian moms and grannies in a central McDonalds. The tax expert chose the location as her office was nearby, and she could run across to make photo copies. Our goal? To help the mothers and grandmothers apply for Austria’s "Familienbeihilfe”, essentially a child benefit which all parents in Austria are entitled to, and now Ukrainians also, thanks to a law that was passed in June just before the government took the rest of the summer off (I joke but not really). Now Austria being Austria, the application process is the challenging bit. You can do it online, but it requires registering with the ministry of finance, and I have only heard from a few women who managed that. The alternative is to fill out a 4-page PDF in German, and send it in by mail, along with photocopies of a bunch of documents. The tax expert kindly in her free time wrote up detailed line by line instructions on how to fill out the PDF in Russian, and arrived with those instructions and a giant pile of blank forms all printed out. It took three hours, but in the end, everyone left with as much of their documentation completed as possible.
It isn’t always straightforward, of course. What do I write if my current husband isn’t my child’s father? What if grandmother has custody over the two kids because dad died and mom is in the Ukrainian army? And the kids have special needs and qualify for an additional payment (requires an additional form + diagnosis confirmation in German)? I was buying the children French fries and one didn’t answer when I asked what she would like to eat and the sibling looked at me and said: she has autism. I got down low and asked again, and heard the word potato. I nodded. French friends were ordered.
What if I don’t have a bank account yet? What if my blue card hasn’t arrived? One 16 year old boy lost his blue card on the way to meet us, so they won’t be able to apply until they find it again and make a copy of it. They also don’t have a bank account yet (appointment is for Wed), and the dorm they are living in doesn’t have strong enough wi-fi for him to continue his online studies (although he was a very good student in Ukraine). I sent him info about the Vienna public transport lost and found, and I gave him lots of individual advice on how to pester the city of Vienna and schools here to try and find a place. I often think it must sound like we are asking them to climb mountains from their perspective.
One mom told me her 11 year old son will be in a class of only Ukrainian kids in the fall — different ages put together by the city of Vienna where they will learn German and do sports and that’s basically it. Or that is how she described it. School will be a huge challenge, and no matter how many resources exist — some regions are trying harder than others, but there is clear evidence many like Vienna are trying, the problem I have with all these government and NGO organizations is they are so corporate, there is often a 10 page document in Ukrainian instead of just a simple phone number or an email or a Telegram to contact. So therefore the people most able to help themselves — language skills, education level, financially — are also the ones who get information first. Those least able to help themselves, due to a dire financial situation and lack of information and lack of understanding about how to go about things in a new country, they often are the last to find out about things and don’t understand what to do until they very much have their hands held through a process by volunteers or NGOs. So I get the feeling many of these families fall through the cracks. I try to actively tell moms about the child benefit, send the information, but of course there are only so many hours in the day. I now have over 1,200 Ukrainians in my Telegram group, but still haven’t invited everyone in my address book (in part for fear that Telegram will label me as spam again). On my to do list.
I spend an awful lot of time just sending links and information around. I really believe we have to help people to help themselves. Send the phone number of a doctor or a link to the website without making the appointment for them. Unless of course, you must, as was the case for me this morning. A few days ago, I got a message from a woman who had received a Hofer card from us some time ago. She was late for her period, was told she could only see a doctor in October, what to do? I sent her to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test. Came back positive. She was happy. Husband will be happy. It will be a very nice surprise something no one expected now. Good. So then I work the phone for an hour this morning and end up with a private doctor’s appointment for her next week with an ob/gyn in her neighbourhood. She will have to then get into the state insurance system for pregnancy care, but for this first visit, for peace of mind, to know that everything is ok, I wanted her to see a doctor sooner. Posted on Twitter, quickly found someone to help pay the €160 doctor’s fee. Sorted. Is this traditional charity work? Of course not. Did it solve one family’s most immediate hurdle? You bet.
This morning I was able to get right to work after the long weekend as I received funding to buy another 19 €50 grocery cards. Those went out by post (17 of them), the last two I will hand deliver to a dorm later today. It feels so wonderful every time I pop more envelopes in the post box, and every time the happy grocery photos float into my DMs. Mario also posted an update about the website; nearly €120,000 donated towards Hofer gift cards in the three months since it went live. Just incredible.
My phone is still buzzing all the time and I am working on time management but it isn’t easy. Each little request can drag you down a rabbit hole if you aren’t careful. The group chat is certainly a much better way to share useful info extensively, but it also creates many side messages and I try to be super quick so as not to lose focus of what are my main goals what I need to get done today. Several months into life in Austria, some Ukrainians have done better than others of learning how to help themselves. Which is totally normal, because Ukraine is a huge country, and a commercial real estate specialist from Kyiv with two Masters degrees is not going to approach problems the same way as a teenager from a small village who never even saw Kyiv before she passed through on her way out of the country by train. So I try to filter through what I can and cannot help with, not losing sight of the importance of drawing continued attention to the Cards for Ukraine project. I love how fast and direct our impact is. Cash for food to those in need. Period. Arrives in your post box. But of course the waiting list is enormous and we can only send cards once we receive funding for them.
Not everything is perfect. We sent a used phone to a mom of an adult handicapped daughter and husband with cancer by mail weeks ago, and it never arrived. She is upset, I don’t have a second phone to send to her. I don’t know what happened with the mail; the parcel never came back to me. My kid sent it, didn’t keep the receipt. Lesson learned, but problem not solved, yet. Getting Pasha ready for volleyball camp, he will have to sleep with us on Saturday as from his little town there will be no bus early on Sunday morning to get him to Vienna on time for the camp bus departure. He needs a covid test. Remind Natasha not to forget. A woman writes me from Burgenland, can we find housing for her mom, who will flee occupied DNR via Russia in September? Start a conversation with the authorities there (very responsible so far, thankfully). An individual who works on social housing with NGOs as me if I know large “cancer” families in need of housing in Wien. Try to make some connections. Can I help a mom with a severely autistic son find new housing in Graz, another volunteer asks me? And so on. All day. Every day.
I would like to recommend several articles and podcasts in no particular order which I found very informative this week — and by no means all on Ukraine.
Two black women, two sides of the abortion debate, two personal histories:
On Kurz’ new employer:
Super insightful discussion in Russian in this Meduza podcast with an economist on the real impact of economic sanctions, and why a 0.5% fall in GDP for EU elected leaders can be catastrophic, while a 6% decline in GDP for Putin with Rosgvardia at his disposal is like meh. Talks about Russian society being broadly devoid of empathy, don’t blame themselves for the Putin era, economic decline does not lead to automatic political protest. Putin has no long-term strategy beyond one year, the war ends when he is gone (something I too have been saying since the very beginning).
On Kherson. One mom from Odesa told me yesterday she is afraid to go home until “Kherson is liberated and they are pushed back from Mykolaiv because you know we are openly exposed on the water”…but pushing back from Kherson might mean open urban warfare which no one wants. Full article here, and I would also recommend this Economist piece on the challenges of a counter-attack to take back Kherson. Also saw rumblings of more ammunition moving into Belarus this morning.
It certainly feels like this conflict will drag on, for god knows how long, and that means this winter may be a horror in all these areas with no more running water, heat, electricity. This CNN video from near the front lines in Donbas (Siversk) was pretty shocking, even for me. I think about we have to do all we can here to prepare for fall and winter, to find more housing, to help with schools, to make sure basic money for basic needs is arriving to those in need, to make it easier to find employment and child care, etc. It is a huge ask, but it is not going to go away.
My husband ordered wood. Sent me to the store to buy gardening gloves and a giant basket. Tomorrow the truck will arrive. Dump the wood. I am not sure this is an adequate plan for Putin’s winter gas games. It is certainly not something everyone can do. Not everyone has a wood burning decorative (and I stress that word) little stove. But surely Europe this winter will be more comfortable than many parts of Ukraine. Think of all the people still living in parts of Kharkiv with no heating, what will they do in winter? Where will they go?
Finally, I feel the need to address, if only briefly, the Russian visa ban drama. Several things can be true at once: an EU tourist visa ban for Russian nationals may have little impact on an elite whose families already hold second and third passports of other nations for years, and it may prevent dissidents, journalists, and others who have spoken out against Putin’s war from reaching safety in EU, and it is also understandable after everything Ukraine has gone through that many Ukrainians do not have any sympathy for any of these arguments. I totally understand the anger; the Putin-friendly Russian elite should not be holidaying in Biarritz or St. Tropez. But they will anyway, because they have second passports. Cyprus, Israel, UK, pick your poison. And a blanket ban plays perfectly into Kremlin propaganda. Putin’s whole thing is the west is out to get Russia and everything is the fault of the evil west and a visa ban would be a dream for his propaganda machines, as well as a boost to Russia’s economy. I understand the emotion. I completely understand the intention, but the result would be counter-productive, in my opinion. But if it makes Ukraine feel like it has an emotional win, ok, but beware the ripple effects. Will take that much longer to bring Russia post-Putin back into Europe (assuming you want to do that at all). Isolate the Russian people even further, you get a result like Serbia today, where conspiracy theories and anti-NATO anti-west sentiment are mainstream, supported by state propaganda that likes to play both sides. The visa discussion is a lot of noise, but it is a painful one. Russians argue they have relatives who have a right to visit them; Ukrainians argue you are responsible for a murderous genocidal war you all should stay in Russia where you belong. Europe is a privilege not a right. I hear both sides so clearly, it’s murky, my general inclination is to be against bans of any kind, but then you want the entire Kremlin apparatus and military and everyone involved in these horrors of war to rot in hell forever. So yes, it’s complicated. I think back to the angry woman I heard on the beach in Croatia. She should not have been there spilling her venom, but then, that would also thought police, from a legal point of view.
I am going to keep focusing on what I can do: direct aid in the form of the supermarket gift cards, and helping Ukrainians to navigate their new lives in Austria, to the extent that my skill sets match, or I can point them in the right direction. Recently, a very close family member (aggressive narcissist let’s leave it at that) told me that if I I was spending my time helping strangers instead of my family then my own priorities were wrong. That was very hurtful, and also something I thought about for a long time. I see that yes, my family life has suffered. Sure, my kids have experienced me missing deadlines for this and that of their activities and school, and I haven’t always been fully mentally or physically present. But if I spend part of my lifetime helping other people because I choose to and I am able to, is that really a bad thing? If I were to dedicate 100% of my time to my own family, that would feel super selfish to me. Of course things suffer. There are only 24 hours in a day. You cannot be in two places at once. But every little thing does make a difference. Every family who opens their mailbox and finds €50 towards groceries breathes a sign of relief. Every contact I make, whether it is a doctor or a dentist or a class for kids or school, or the child benefit application, each step is a step towards feeling more settled and having immediate needs provided for. I take pleasure in even recommending my favourite swimming spots in Vienna. Why wouldn’t I? I also received many great tips when we first moved here years ago. And coming together, like we did yesterday, three women who can help and two dozen women in need of help, well, that felt really damn beautiful.
Gosh, this is long. Apologies. Thank you for reading. Thank you for your continued support.
I read about this project yesterday: https://www.1kproject.org/
They focus on single mothers and families with more than three children.
Please do share with your contacts. I hope eligible Ukrainian families in Austria get aid through this project.