Some fleeing the war in Ukraine have found open arms in North County San Diego.
Rancho Santa Fe resident Susann Fishman has been making connections, finding spare rooms and full hearts to help make a welcoming home for Ukrainian refugees who have been forced to leave their own.
She signed up with www.ukrainetakeshelter.com, an independent platform helping to connect Ukrainian refugees with potential hosts and housing, developed by Harvard students. Focusing on women and children, Fishman scrambled to find safe places for them to stay.The cause feels personal to Fishman, who is Swedish-American with roots in Finland. When Finland was invaded by the Nazis during the Lapland War, her mother was born in a refugee camp in Sweden.
“The first week of the war I had a strong sense or feeling that I wanted to open my house and host a refugee,” Low said. “I put out a prayer for a young female and it’s interesting because as it turns out, Lesia put out that same prayer.” It was her mother who called her and encouraged her to leave—Lesia got out of Ukraine a week before the first bombs dropped.
She watches Ukrainian news on the internet and uses WhatsApp to connect with her friends and family, some of whom do not want to leave Ukraine. She is grateful to be in America and for the women who took her in. It wasn’t safe to be near the windows to they chose to go to their basement, where it was very cold and there was no light. They had internet and phone service but it was spotty and her sister Tatiana in Los Angeles pleaded with her to leave.
Maria’s parents Olena and Volodymyr lived in Kyiv and they did not want to go but once they saw how frightened the family was and what they had experienced, they agreed to leave with them to west Ukraine. The next day they evacuated by car in a huge traffic snarl— a three- hour trip took 24 hours — the distance was tiresome for her parents and her children.
With her children, she traveled to Warsaw and she was in communication with her “angels” Fishman and Bradshaw about a home in San Diego. She flew from Warsaw to London and from London to Mexico City and then onto Tijuana.
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