Some Ukrainian families hosted in Montevarchi. John Paul II Foundation and Augustinian nuns together for hospitality.
"We thank the Augustinian nuns of San Giovanni Valdarno for their willingness to welcome these new families from Ukraine to their home in Montevarchi," says the John Paul II Foundation.
Eight people, women with children and girls, have found hospitality in the Augustinian nuns' house in Montevarchi. The John Paul II Foundation, which is already hosting 22 people in Fiesole, at the Rogationist Fathers, is continuing its work of welcoming and assisting those forced, by war, to flee Ukraine. The group in Fiesole is part of the reception and therefore support plan provided by the Italian government, the one in Montevarchi is not. But the welcome cannot stop.
"We could not back down from the many Ukrainians who are fleeing the disaster of war, bombings and completely destroyed cities," says Stefano Ermini project manager. Ermini led a small expedition with food aid, children's products and medicines for a children's hospital, which left from Florence and reached, not without difficulty, the border Slovak-Ukrainian border at Uzhhorod. "Then we waited for our Ukrainian friends whom we can now host in Montevarchi. During the long journey to Italy they tried to sleep, to talk, even though their eyes, those of the mothers, were staring fixedly out the window, lost and afraid."
The John Paul II Foundation is working together with Green Cross Ukraine, and this is thanks to the work of Maria Vitagliano.
In Montevarchi, thanks to volunteers from the John Paul II Foundation, Ukrainian women and their children will try to regain some peace and normalcy. The children will not be placed in local schools for now, with one month to go before school ends. But they will participate in summer centers, as will those hosted in Fiesole. "In Fiesole," Ermini explains, "they asked us to continue attending their Ukrainian classes. We gave them some tablets and, thanks to the Internet, they follow school for three hours a day, they see their classmates, they try to continue the life they had until a few weeks ago."
Those who would like to learn about the project can find information here