The Ukrainian pair opened Safe Space to assist fellow citizens; outsiders, such as an Ashland schoolteacher, are drawn to help too

Editor’s note: Ashland High School teacher and Ashland.news freelance reporter Paul Huard volunteered this summer in Ukraine. Here’s his fifth and final dispatch of the summer about his experience.

By Paul R. Huard for Ashland.news

In Przemsyl, Poland, two Ukrainian women offer a sanctuary to the women and children of their invaded nation because they decided it was the right thing to do.

Natasha and her daughter Katerina opened the Safe Space, a set of secure rented rooms across from the train station in the Polish town that is less than 6 miles from the border with Ukraine. It is a place where the women and mothers escaping the Russian onslaught can enjoy a temporary reprieve free of charge and available to any who ask for help.

Opened in July 2022 and funded with individual donations as well as financial help from the Church of the Nazarene, the pair still aid dozens of families a month even though the flow of refugees through the border town is a fraction of what it was when the war escalated on Feb. 24, 2022.

Mothers traveling with their children and women traveling alone are welcome to rest there, drink some tea, charge their cellphones, let their kids play with toys or color, nurse their babies or simply sit and try to forget the war for a few minutes. When they stay at the Safe Space, they are protected from both the elements and the human traffickers who still attempt to prey on Ukrainian women escaping the war.

Before the war, Natasha worked for the Ukrainian telephone service. Katerina, who prefers the name Kate and speaks fluent English, was a university student studying to be a schoolteacher.

“I’m glad that people have the opportunity to spend a couple of hours waiting here, rather than waiting outside somewhere near passport control,” Kate told me when I stayed overnight in Przemysl on my way home to the United States. I met her and her mother last year when I volunteered to work with them and at the train station, assisting refugees.

“Everyone is comfortable here since the room was originally designed for children,” Kate said. “We are all children at heart. Every adult at heart is child who still needs to be cared for — particularly now.”

Kate and Natasha humble me. Their motivations are deeply held, based on a desire to live up to the tenets of their faith and assist fellow Ukrainian women. Their reasons for volunteering are probably crystal-clear to outside observers.

People are more puzzled by my motivations. I am a high school history teacher; I am not Ukrainian. Why give up most of my summer break to help what some argue are total strangers?

And why Ukraine? Yemen, the Sahel of Africa, or Myanmar — all are deeply troubled areas of the world with humanitarian crises that boggle the mind and demand attention.

I certainly do not argue that those places and many others should be ignored. Besides, it is not a question of help Ukraine or help someone else.

These crises deserve the attention and compassion of Americans as well as the rest of the developed world. A nation as wealthy and as generous as the United States can and should, through both charitable donations and foreign aid, assist the suffering on this planet. It is the right thing to do.

For me, helping Ukraine in the modest ways that I do is the right thing. I freely admit that I am drawn to the cause because of a keen sense of outrage that in the 21st century, Russia would make war on a fellow European nation, threatening the Europe that gave me as a young man the gift of its culture and history that has stayed with me my entire life.

The historian in me also knows that twice in the 20th century, the United States went to war in Europe to prevent autocratic powers from conquering that continent and leaving the fate of millions in the hands of a few. As I am fond of saying when I comment about the Russo-Ukrainian War, I have read this book before — I know how it could end.

However, I am not like Kate and Natasha. I parachute in when I can, stay several weeks, work as hard as I can and try to do some good. I truly wish I could stay much longer.

I leave. They live with the war, now in its 525th day as I write this piece, day in, day out, doing what they can every day to help their fellow Ukrainians.

So, what I can do when I am not there is attempt to convince others that helping Ukraine is the right thing to do.

There are plenty of pragmatic reasons why. For example, Ukraine produces one-quarter of all the cereal grains grown on this planet. That’s why Vladimir Putin callously wants to use Black Sea access to Ukrainian grain as a weapon of war.

Or the fact that the citizens of many European nations rightly wonder if Ukraine falls to the Russians, are they next? Will we see World War III in our lifetime?

I prefer that we decide to aid Ukraine because people like Kate and Natasha and 44 million other Ukrainians who never asked for this war would like their nation back, would like to continue their efforts to sustain a functioning democracy there, and would like to have peace again so their families do not need to flee war and take sanctuary in a room in Poland. It doesn’t seem to be a bad cause to back.

In the meantime, I will consider when I return to Ukraine. It will take time to rebuild the nation, and my support for their cause is no whim.

In helping Ukraine, I truly believe that we may be helping ourselves.

You can find out more about how you can help Ukraine and its people by clicking on supportukrainenow.org and travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/Intercountry-Adoption-News/ukraine—fact-sheet–how-you-can-help.html

Read previous Dispatches from Ukraine here:

No. 1: Far from home, not far from the front

No. 2: Building may be shaken, but spirits aren’t

No. 3: Planning tip — plan for plans to change

No. 4: Comforting the afflicted — and getting some in return

Paul R. Huard was a reporter who covered government and the military for Gannett newspapers. His freelance work included assignments in Estonia and Spain. During the summer of 2022, he volunteered as a humanitarian relief worker in Przemysl, Poland, where he assisted Ukrainian refugees. This summer, he spent 31 days volunteering in Ukraine and Poland in variety of humanitarian roles. He lives in Ashland. Email Huard at [email protected].