Fund-raising for a Ukrainian women's refuge

Hello,

this is the first time I use this medium of communication. I'm not sure what to expect from it really but I suppose time will tell. I'll try to post impressions about Ukraine both when I'm there and when I'm at home both in English and in German and perhaps in Ukrainian as well when I'm able to write more than "Where is the hotel?" or "Does this bus go to the city centre?" ;o)

This blog is for my Ukrainian friends, for my Austrian friends and for my friends all over the world as well as for other people who are interested in Ukraine or just wonder why anyone would go to a country that's not a typical holiday destination. Please remember that not everything I say (or rather: write) can be taken too seriously since I can and will be very sarcastic from time to time.

Perhaps, for those who don't know me or for those who don't know anyway, I should start by telling you how I got to know this country and how this changed my life.

When I went to high school, we had a teacher who went to Ukraine to teach German there (yes, they've got lots of schools which offer German classes and I still don't really understand what they're for...). The year after, it must have been in 2001, she started sending some of her Ukrainian students to my high school to improve their German. Since then, we've been a host family to 7 girls and 1 teacher. I got to know many more of course and close friendships still connect me to some of them.

Since I'm also a bit of a linguist, I decided at some point that I want to learn their language. No, I didn't only want to learn it - I had to study it. Therefore, and because many of my friends kept inviting me and seemed a bit annoyed because I had always put my visit off due to various reasons although I really wanted to visit them, I decided to go to L'viv (also known as Lemberg to most German speakers) last February to take private Ukrainian classes (initially 3 hours a day but since it really is interesting and I wanted to make the most of it we finally agreed on 4 hours - one-to-one lessons) for 22 days.

During my "holidays", I didn't only get the chance to visit nearly all of my friends, I also got to know the way of life, the culture and the most western part of the country a bit and of course I also met the teacher of my former school again, who is now a close friend of our family. She invited me to go to Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine, with her. What I saw there, changed my life. Her friend there runs a small women's refuge. It's only as big as a flat but contains so many stories absolutely unheard of in Austria or other places I'd visited.
Every single woman who lives there could fill a whole newspaper only with her stories. They had to take their children and leave their homes behind forever because their husbands raped and abused them. It is very hard for them to find help and in some cases their husbands are searching them. Death threats to the man who runs the home are nothing unusual. - You get the picture.

I knew there must be something I can do. Ultimately, I decided to organise a flea market, which took place a week ago and was a big success given that it was the first thing I organised and given that it took place in a rather small town. The result was € 920 ( = ca. 6,700 Ukrainian Hryvnia = ca. 645 GBP = ca. 1,325 USD ).

One of my friends decided to give me a t-shirt with an autograph of the American skier Bode Miller to sell it for "my project". The auction is still running so if you want to make a contribution to it too, feel free to bid.

With the help of the "Salzburger Nachrichten" (a big newspaper in Austria), we will also sell a Red Bull Salzburg football top with the autographs of all players on e-Bay. I hope that both auctions will be successful. When the football top is on e-Bay, I'll post a link on here so you can have a look at it and perhaps place a bid as well.

I'm currently planning to go back to Ternopil to bring them the money (since their Christmas is in January, I'm trying to get there before their but after our Christmas, if that is possible).
Of course I'll keep posting news, stories and photos until then.