Time for a positive update from Galina and her three grandchildren. The owner of the apartment where they are staying in Amsterdam needed her apartment for a week. Luckily this coincided with the Dutch school holiday so we were able to arrange a nice solution: Mia owns a large AirBnB property in Well close to the border with Germany. in the picturesque National park De Maasduinen. She graciously made this available for the week. Arnold, the first host of Galina, offered to bring the family from Amsterdam to Well and also helped with shopping, getting settled in the house etc. Guido arranged the trip back to Amsterdam and helped with preparing the house for the next guests. In the attached picture, you can see Galina and her grandchildren. They really enjoyed their time in Well: the house was fantastic, they loved spending time in nature plus they had wonderful weather.

Today, Galina and the children received their  social security registrations and financial government support. This is really thanks to the hard work and multiple trips to the city hall from Tanya, our family coordinator! Tanya, you are a star!

Dear All,

Providing some social glue is important for the wellbeing of the families. Last weekend Ana, one of our volunteers, took five Ukrainian families to Rijksmuseum. The visit to the museum is free for the refugees all week upon presentation of a Ukrainian passport. It was a lot of fun and was a great opportunity to meet other families who fled the violence of war in their homeland. During the Dutch Kingsday celebration, Guido took Valentina to an outdoor party and a number of her Ukrainian friends joined later at night as well.

We are doing well on the scorecard of success for the families in our network. The scorecard contains for each family metrics like, government registration completeness, schooling in place for the children, jobs for the adults, permanent housing found and so on. Each family starts with a zero % score at the start. On average we are now at 80% score thanks to the help of so many!

In the attached pictures, you can see Ana and the 5 families she took to the museum.

Here is a quick update on our families. In the Netherlands, it is obligatory to send children to school within 2 weeks from arrival. In the past weeks, we have been busy with all arrangements but we are pleased to share with you that we have managed to arrange school for 9 out of 11 families with children. In the attached picture, you can see Alisa's and Veronika's first trip to school. They are accompanied by Gerard, the host of one of the families in Landsmeer, who walked them to school. They all seem happy and excited!

Thank you all for your generous donations!