Homes for Ukraine: Wilbrahams’ response

Update from Hilary Burton

Dear village residents,

Thank you to everyone who has offered support for Ukrainian refugees. Here is an update on what we have been able to do as a village community. If you would like to join the community effort but haven’t yet been in contact with me, please email me on hb384@cam.ac.uk.

So far we have one family that has arrived in the villages through the scheme; we hope another couple will arrive shortly. I have been in close contact with OASISS, the group in Great Shelford that has done a tremendous amount in orchestrating a local response (they have already welcomed more than 20 ‘guests’ with another 50 or so expected). I have joined their weekly coffee mornings and got to know some of the Ukrainian guests, hearing about their experiences and offering friendship and a chance to practice their English! The Wilbrahams have been able to offer support to OASISS by linking with residents who offered specific help eg with languages. I am pleased to report that the GW Parish Council has also offered a small grant that we could use, possibly for social events and other small items.

We have been in close contact with the team in South Cambs who are doing a fantastic job providing support for incoming refugees and their hosts. In particular, they are putting in place an ‘interim’ host scheme to provide short-term emergency accommodation (eg 1-4 weeks) for Ukrainian refugees where necessary (eg where a host becomes ill or circumstances change). If anyone would like to offer such short-term accommodation under this scheme, please let me know and I will forward the link.

Until now we have not required substantial amounts of money and so we have not acted upon the very generous offers of financial support from people in the village. However, this might change soon as we are actively looking into the potential to rent a house. We think it would be a wonderful community effort to be able to offer a home to a family and we do hope you would be willing to support it. If anyone knows of a property likely to become available for rental, please let me know.

I hope this helps to keep you in the picture and I am sorry that things seem to be moving rather slowly. I know from discussions that people are very keen that our villages should play their part in alleviating the impact of this appalling war on human beings. I’m afraid the situation in Ukraine is a long-term one – most people acknowledge that it is unlikely that families who have arrived here will be able to go home soon and the need to offer medium to longer term support will increase.

With best wishes to you all and thanks.

Hilary

(From coordinators: Hilary Burton, Christine Page, Richard Lane and Claire Daunton)