“War Diary” From ‘Giving Joy’ Foundation. Part 1. Yuriy - The Head of The Aquapark And Shelter Founder.
8 April 2022
We so often hear the words ‘refugee’, ‘internally displaced person’ that we could unconsciously depersonalize them. But behind each such mention there is a real person, alive and unique, with his/her story. That’s why it’s important to collect and show the stories of people, whose lives were changed completely by the war.
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So in ‘Giving Joy’ foundation we’ve started the project ‘War diary’. The first part is the interview with Yuriy, the head of the sports complex in Dnipro, who equipped it as a shelter.
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The foundation helps this shelter for refugees with food, hygiene products, even pellets for heating. So we could share how much it costs Yuriy and his team support 60 refugees every
day.
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03/25/22. At the sports complex “Yantarny” at Klochko district in Dnipro, where the kids used to have fun at water hills in aquapark. There was a private kindergarten in winter but now there is shelter working everyday - temporary shelter for internally displaced people.
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Sunbeds are used instead of beds - nowadays it’s almost luxury, so the head of aquapark is upset that it’s not the best option, and he’s sorry that they couldn’t get beds.
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Yuriy is one of the few businessmen who uses his location as the shelter. The most shelters in Dnipro are situated in municipal buildings (the schools with sport grounds etc.) It will be
clear from our conversation.
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We’re talking in the hall. It’s warm and quiet, there are colorful paper hearts hanging from the ceiling, which are left from St. Valentine’s Day, which was the last celebration in the peaceful
life.
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Yuriy is telling the story.
“On February 26th, when we realized that the war wouldn’t last for a day, we decided to accept people. I contacted my colleagues at Viber. I wrote: ’We have to do something, stop sitting at home’. We’ve found contacts of the refugee center and now they direct people to us.
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Now we’ve got 60 people and it’s not the limit. You can see that there is a place for beds, but we can’t afford them so far. People live in rooms, where the kindergarten used to be. On February 26-27th I tried to buy beds, but it was impossible to buy either beds or cots. But we had sunbeds instead, so we used them. That’s what we have.
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There is still more space but unfortunately we can’t afford more people. We provide the shelter with the reserves from the previous season. The volunteers help with food, pillows and blankets but it’s less than 25% of the expenses.
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Feeding isn’t so difficult. Our volunteer cook works from 7 a.m. till 7:30 p.m. Now you can enter the kitchen and see how she’s already started cooking dinner, the process is unstoppable. We had the second cook, but some trouble in her family happened, so she couldn’t continue working anymore. Ira is left alone here, I’m sorry for her, but we need to feed people. The guests are helping her of course. But when you work without days off, sometimes you feel exhausted.
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The kitchen adds 35-40 thousand UAH to electricity expenses per month. For example, in February before the shelter was organized, there weren’t many visitors in the kindergarten, we used electricity only for our needs, it was about 27 thousand UAH. Now I see that it’ll be about 60-70 thousand UAH.
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We know one more person who organized the same shelter for about 50-60 people. At first they planned to accept 70, but when 70 people arrived, they realized that physically they couldn’t take care of all of them, so now they accept 50 people. There is some help, but it isn’t enough.
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I won’t give up. If I fall three times, I’ll get up 4 times. Money as businessmen, we’ll earn later, but now we need support.
I don’t need money. But the application ‘Yasno’ sends messages every day: reminds to pay for electricity. I wrote: refugees are staying at this place. But municipal workers don’t care. I don’t have enough money to pay them. I spent all my savings during the first 3 weeks. I wish they could wait with debts. The war will finish, we’ll win, earn money and pay them back. But,
no, any deferment.
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We’re sitting here now, in the hall - it’s warm, we can stay here. We used to heat only where people were living. Thank God, the foundation ‘Giving Joy’ helped - delivered 2 tons of fuel, I used 400 kilos only yesterday. 1 ton 600 kilos are left. So we read the laws: municipal expenses will be compensated to utilities. And we’re very upset about that.
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This month we’ll continue working somehow, we’ll borrow money. But I’ve already spent all my money during the first 3 weeks, so I've run out of money. I asked the bank for a loan at 0%, they answered that it’s possible only for agriculture. Why so? I’ve been here for the last 8 years, I’ve got a positive credit history, I won’t disappear anywhere. “We’re giving loans only for agriculture. So, do we have to plant potatoes”?
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Our conversation was interrupted by an elderly lady: “Are you the head, aren’t you? I’m very grateful, we came yesterday - I feel as if I was reborned. I thank you so much”! The lady’s name is Zoya. We also talked to her later. Now we continue talking to Yuriy.
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“I would pay the loan back. But the guard is working here as well - I have to pay them. So we’re broke. I’ll have to pay 60 thousand UAH for electricity per month, 30 thousand UAH for the guard, 6 thousand UAH for water. I’ve just added water into cars, and reported to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine that I’ve got water supply for fire trucks. Then we could drain the water, because we need to preserve the pool. I also paid water municipal service, otherwise they could cut water off. So it turns out that we’re suspended. People ask. “Why don’t you evict people? Let them stay for 1-2 days and move further. ”But how could I evict them? Where to go? Tell me where, maybe they could go there.
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One woman’s been living here for 3 weeks, then she was invited by relatives to Poltava. She moved there and wrote: “Sorry, can we return? There aren’t good conditions here”. Though they were sleeping in sunbeds here. I was sorry that they would sleep that way. How could I deny them? We’ll do something about this situation, we’ll cope with it. But we still hope that we won’t be forgotten.”
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For a while just after this conversation we received good news. The sports complex was promised that part of municipal expenses could be compensated.
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We’re very happy and grateful that authorities remember the businessmen, who take such a great responsibility and together with non-profit organizations give shelter to refugees!
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The interview was conducted by the volunteer - Olga Levchenko.
