Took this photo last night at the end of what felt like a mildly productive day. I feel like it really captures hustle and bustle while also stopping to admire the colors. At this inflection point of sorts (it has been six months), I am still very much feeling the hustle and bustle while also trying to step back and think more strategically: how to divide my time, where do we achieve the most by advocating through which channels. It’s some kind of slightly organized chaos.
I have a huge favor to ask of all of your. I was honoured to be nominated for Austrian of the year (yes, even though I am not Austrian, the committee from Die Presse decided it’s ok) in the category for Humanitarian Engagement. The exciting part is the top three of the five candidates (by vote) will each receive €10,000. In my case, that would be 200 €50 Hofer cards. If I make it to the top three, I would donate the entire prize to Cards-for-Ukraine. Voting is really simple and only takes a second. You just have to click on this link and enter your first and last names and an email address. Thank you so much! It’s a great way to help us raise money even if you can’t afford to donate.
TO VOTE: https://www.diepresse.com/wirtschaft/unternehmen/austriagala22
This ran in the paper today. Online version here. Do note it is Mario Zechner obviously not Markus! He had a good laugh about it. They promised to fix it. The award ceremony will be on October 19 so still a long time to round up votes but €10,000 would really, really help us. Our waiting list is over 2000 families, and that would cover 200 cards.
In other news, I was on a group call about the refugee situation in Austria yesterday, and as I didn’t ask the others their permission if I could discuss the conversation publicly, I’ll keep my comments vague, but to sum it up, we “grassroots” folks all said in unison: the house is on fire except you don’t see the smoke and flames yet. There is a housing crisis. Buses are arriving from Ukraine and there is nowhere to house them. Federal government points at states, states point at federal, and as one Ukrainian put it so aptly to us all this week: “there is no central laundromat”. There is no central laundromat. No one in the government wants to take responsibility, no one wants to fund additional housing and aid, no one wants to see the invisible problem. Because, for the moment, you don’t see it.
You don’t see the young Ukrainian kids going to kindergarten without lunch money because their moms cannot afford €4.70 per day for lunch.
You don’t see the handicapped people giving up due to a total lack of social services for them in languages they speak and going back to Ukraine, by bus.
You don’t see the teenagers trying to do online school in Ukraine from a dorm or hotel room sharing their parents’ mobile phones because there is no laptop or tablet, the Russians stole them all when they ransacked your apartment in Mariupol and their bombs killed your grandmother and uncle, with no access to state payments or child benefit because the dorm territory is considered temporary no man’s land where you should be grateful you were offered something edible at meal times.
You don’t see the blind man who arrived a few weeks ago, also living in no man’s land, also with no social worker, and was robbed of his phone at the Hungarian border. His neighbour called me and asked for help. I found an Austrian who promised to deliver a phone and a SIM card.
It takes a village. A village working so hard behind the scenes and no one sees it. Until it implodes. And implode it will this fall, if the war continues and temperatures drop and huge swaths of Ukraine will be uninhabitable if not heated in winter. The poorest refugees cannot settle in western Ukraine. They cannot afford the rents. So they keep going, to Europe. And Europe? Europe is tired of them. Europe keeps hoping the war will be over any day now.
At the main train station in Vienna, the operator (ÖBB) will have no charity, no volunteers on site after mid-September. Who will help the vulnerable pensioners and handicapped when they arrive by train from Hungary speaking only Ukrainian or Russian? No one knows. Perhaps ÖBB security guards. But I can imagine none of them are trained social workers. Not that you have to be. We volunteers are also not trained social workers. But we came for a purpose, and a middle-aged man who takes a job as a security guard is not trained for social work. Nor should railway employees be. It just is the perfect metaphor for ignoring a problem and thinking it will just disappear.
It will not disappear.
Just got a text asking if I know a family of 6…there might be social housing in Salzburg. I get in touch with one family I have in mind who fit the criteria. Train of Hope write back…will talk later, another bus just arrived from Ukraine.
Another bus just arrived from Ukraine.
These refugees are hoping for housing and food and some money and a fresh start and the truth is the system is bursting at the seams and even those who have been here for months already are having a very hard time getting off of the Grundversorgung (basic care payments) system and into paid work which would cover all their needs, housing and financial.
The system itself is, in my opinion, beyond repair, too broken to fix. It needs to be thrown out.
We need to stop talking about the “poor refugees” because the ÖVP doesn't care about that, and they run the country. We need to start talking about the 250,000 open jobs in Austria which Austrian employers cannot find anyone to fill, despite the arrival of over 80,000 highly educated immigrants. Why? Because the minute you get a job paying anything half-way liveable, you lose your housing and benefits if you asked for help from the state. A grace period of 3-6 months would solve this problem, yet it isn’t even on the table. Nothing is on the table. No one is taking any action from the federal government on this.
Every possible step must be taken to make getting a decent, legal job as easy as possible for those who arrive from Ukraine and are willing and able to work.
Will nothing change until this fall photos appear in the press of hundreds if not thousands of newly homeless Ukrainians going back to Ukraine because they couldn’t figure out how to survive in Austria? Will it change even then?
So that’s what is on my mind. And in between, I am still delivering Hofer cards. 40 went out this morning. Incredible. Feels so, so good to drop them all in the mailbox! I am now on my way to deliver some cards in person, including to an 85 year old Ukrainian woman who is texting on Telegram. Yes, really! When I asked her yesterday if we could meet, she asked for today, explaining yesterday she was on her way to the swimming pool (“it was closed for a month and I really want to go back”). Amazing.
A few viewing recommendations which I have not yet been able to partake in myself, but am really, really looking forward to.
Professor Timothy Snyder’s class at Yale on The Making of Modern Ukraine is now online on YouTube for all of us, for free! Here you will find the entire syllabus. I am going to make time for this on the weekend and reminisce about how college really was the best time of our lives, we just didn’t appreciate it at the time. What I would do now for just lectures and long evenings in a library my head stuck in books…really.
I would also very much like to watch Christo Grozev’s guest lecture at Sciences Po on Investigating Russia (link in tweet), also on YouTube.
That’s all I have time for today. Thank you for reading and for your votes! I am really excited about the possibility of being able to raise another €10,000 for Cards for Ukraine. Fundraising has naturally become much more of a challenge, as the months roll on and inflation bites all of us. I get it. I totally understand. I just don’t know what to tell the Ukrainians who are still writing me every day asking for help. My own pile is now much smaller (23 to be exact) but still waiting on my desk. To contribute towards it, please mail me cards or donate here.
One last piece of good news! A tireless volunteer who I think would like to remain nameless has helped dozens of Ukrainian women apply for the Familienbeihilfe (child payments). The first of those women received her money yesterday! We have another group session scheduled for September 18, and another 15 women eagerly signed up for help. The volunteer is a tax professional, and does this in her “free” time, weekends and holidays. In addition to tutoring several Ukrainian teens in German and helping many of them secure spots in Austrian gymnasium (high schools) which would otherwise have been impossible for their parents acting alone as their advocates. It takes a village. There are many of us. Doing invisible work. With your support. Thank you. And please vote!
I voted for you BUT it was all in German so I hope it goes through!