1 year, 3 months, 4 weeks.
The invasion has lasted longer than most had anticipated. The losses are great and immeasurable. Counteroffensive has begun. Damage to livelihood and infrastructure is still on the rise. And clearly, a long term plan needs to be put in place for those who had to flee Ukraine for a safer place.
I was selected as an "expert" about the crisis situation in the city surrounding Ukrainian refugees. From that panel I was given the position of representing all of the Ukrainians within the city.
With the help of the local council and an NGO,a successful session was put in place. My job was to represent the problems, or as I like to call it - sppedbumps, of the Ukrainian community along with Oksana.
We were expecting around 30 stakeholders and members of the community. But I was pleased to see somewhere around 60 attendees including people from the local council, NGOs, outstanding community members, work associations, language course providers, employment agencies and more.
From empathy to perspective.
Among the attendees was Natalia. A Russian lady who has been active in providing crucial support to the Ukrainian community in the city. She has been incredibly helpful and always on top of the various issues faced by the community. Natalie came up with the "from empathy to perspective" tag.
It is precisely the vision we need to start adopting in order to execute long term plans. Empathy is great, but for more effective long term solutions we need to build a perspective.
Representing almost 2000 people of different ages, lifestyles and needs is a very difficult task. Coming up with long term solutions is further more challenging. But I take this task with pride and honor.
There are not only 2000 Ukrainians in the city that I had to represent but also 3000 in the entire Netherlands that are considered "3rd country nationals".
Clearly the 4 hours were very few to grow action plans and properly understand the different insights from the large group of Ukrainian refugees...nevertheless, the conversation has started and it can only get better from here.