In a studio on the coronary heart of the Czech capital, radio veterans work along with absolute novices to offer the refugees with what they should know to settle as easily as doable in a brand new nation.
The workers of 10 combines individuals who have fled Ukraine in latest weeks with those that have been residing overseas for years. Regardless of who they’re, their frequent aim is to assist fellow Ukrainians and their homeland going through the brutal Russian invasion.
Natalia Churikova, an skilled journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty mentioned she couldn’t say no to a suggestion to turn out to be the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief.
“It was for my individuals, for individuals who actually wanted assist, who actually wanted help, one thing that will assist them begin a brand new stay or restart their lives right here after they’ve lived by very dangerous issues making an attempt to flee from Ukraine,” Churikova mentioned.
Staffer Sofia Tatomyr is a kind of who left to flee the warfare. The 22-year-old from the western city of Kalush was planning to maneuver to a different metropolis in Ukraine when a buddy referred to as one morning: “Sofia, the warfare has simply begun.”
Her mother and father and older brother opted to remain residence, however they wished her to hitch her aunt in Prague.
“It occurred abruptly,” she mentioned. She boarded a bus alone in Cherniutsi and arrived 28 hours later within the Czech capital, a metropolis she’d by no means visited.
“Once I was already overseas, I bear in mind the second that I used to be crying and I used to be making an attempt to purchase a ticket and I couldn’t spell what ticket I want. It was actually troublesome,” she mentioned.
Tatomyr labored as graphic designer and singer in Ukraine after getting a level as a writer and media editor. Radio broadcasting was a part of her programs on the college. To her shock, her aunt’s brother discovered an announcement about jobs for a brand new Ukrainian radio station.
She mentioned she wanted “a while to grasp that not everyone will be on the frontline on the warfare and everyone has to do what she or he can do one of the best.”
“So that is how I’m cheering myself up that I’m doing my occupation, that I’m doing what I can do one of the best, and that is one of the best ways I may help our individuals, I may help Ukraine. That is how I’m fascinated with it,“ she mentioned.
Secure in Prague, she was nonetheless making an attempt to come back to phrases with the invasion of her homeland.
“It’s horrible,” she mentioned. “I can’t nonetheless discover any logical rationalization for what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Within the twenty first century, a warfare? Why? We have been a peaceable nation residing simply our lives.”
One other announcer, Marharyta Golobrodska, was working as a copywriter for a software program firm when she obtained a name from Churikova, whom she knew from an internship at Radio Free Europe.
“I used to think about those that rise up early to be able to work from 6am loopy, however that’s what I do now and I completely get pleasure from it,” Golobrodska mentioned. “That’s what I at all times wished to do, to be useful for my nation, though I stay so far-off.”
For 12 hours every weekday — and 11 hours on weekends — Radio Ukraine performs Ukrainian and western music whereas presenting information of Ukraine and the Czech Republic along with data for refugees each quarter-hour. It contains particulars about the place they will get the paperwork they want from native authorities, the way to get a job or medical therapy, or the way to discover a place for kids at faculties. Kids can take heed to Ukrainian fairy tales.
A local of the southern metropolis of Mykolaiv, Golobrodska has lived within the Czech Republic for eight-and-a-half years. After the invasion, she travelled to western Ukraine to fulfill her mom and 9-year-old sister and drive them to security. In Prague, she obtained them concerned in her broadcast.
“My mum, for instance, advised me she’d like to listen to what she’s not purported to do right here. For instance, that she will be able to’t park the automobile anyplace she desires to love in Ukraine,” she mentioned.
Bohemia Media, which operates a number of radio stations within the Czech Republic, got here up with the thought to launch the station. It offered a studio and its individuals cooperated with the Ukrainian embassy, the native Ukrainian neighborhood and others to make it actuality in three weeks. It additionally covers the salaries.
Lukas Nadvornik, the proprietor of the Mediapark, an organization that represents Bohemia Media, mentioned the plan is for the station to stay on air so long as it’s wanted. The important thing job for now’s to let know as many potential listeners as doable about its existence.
One in all them is Sophia Medvedeva. The 23-year outdated net designer couldn’t maintain again tears as she talked concerning the latest six-day drive along with her mom and youthful brother from Mykolaiv to Krakow, Poland.
However in Prague, she joined her fiancé and Radio Ukraine helped her adapt to a brand new life. “I’m so amazed concerning the likelihood to take heed to Ukrainian music once I’m not in my homeland. I really feel that I’m not alone,” she mentioned. Her solely suggestion for it’s to ask a psychologist to “advise the Ukrainian refugees about the way to combat the survivor syndrome and the way to combat despair.”