This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Homes for Ukraine: UK’s website for refugees only exists in English

By:   []

Date: 2022-03 

Ukrainians fleeing war are being forced to spend hours translating application forms for the UK’s resettlement scheme because the government has not provided a Ukrainian language option.

Britons who have signed up for the Homes for Ukraine programme told openDemocracy that the expectation that people fleeing war would be able to complete the application was “ridiculous”.

One British woman said it took her seven hours to help a Ukrainian family fill out their application, which required them to scan and convert documents while staying in a shelter in Lviv.

“It’s so hard to do the application,” said Claire, who is trying to sponsor a woman and her two children who fled from Odessa to Lviv.

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She said the application would have been impossible for the family to fill out unaided given the language barrier and their limited access to technology.

“They’re sleeping on the floor in a shelter with just their phones. The other night they could hear explosions outside and the building was shaking,” Claire told openDemocracy.

She added that neither the family nor she had received any confirmation or reference numbers after submitting their linked applications, and had had no communication whatsoever from the government for almost a week.

“The worst thing is the stress of having somebody else's life in your hands and not being able to give them any news or hope because it is just a vacuum of nothingness,” she told openDemocracy.

Tina, who declined to give her full name because she feared it would affect her application, told openDemocracy the family she is sponsoring have also been left agonising for a week after receiving no confirmation when they submitted an application.

A helpline operator told Tina that they had been receiving large numbers of calls about the issue over the past week but were unable to check the status of any application or even provide confirmation that one had been received. Some callers had been left waiting seven days without hearing anything, she added.

Tina says she was told: “We are trying to get the answers, but [the scheme] was all put together very last minute with very little preparation.” She said the call handler’s final words were: “It’s rubbish. All of this is rubbish.”
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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/homes-for-ukraine-sponsor-application-language-technical-issues-tlscontact/
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