Hosting Ukrainians on the run? It is very simple and for Easter there is still a need

The intercom rings and Olga arrives at my house, directly from a town just outside Kiev. She has a large blue suitcase, light eyes and honey-colored hair. She speaks a little Italian because her sister lived in Naples for a few years and Olga liked hearing her speak in Italian, “I was interested in the language, I studied on the internet to learn it.” She’s waiting for the residence permit, she’s had swabs and covid vaccinations, and now as I write this, she’s upstairs in my guest room. She is discreet, she says she doesn’t need anything, she wants to know what area of ​​Milan we are in because she has a Ukrainian friend in the city and she hopes to see her. She left shortly after the war started, when her husband died as a soldier, one of the first victims of the conflict. She has a son and a son-in-law at war, a daughter and a daughter-in-law who stayed in Ukraine, she came here to find a job and send them money. There, she says, there is no chance of earning anything, only of surviving with the farm animals.

Olga will stay with me for a few days, then she will go to a more stable accommodation and I found out about it last night. I had placed my house on the Airbnb.org platform dedicated to welcoming refugees, when a few days after the start of the conflict, the short-term rental company announced that it wanted to host 100,000 refugees. It took me a few minutes to place my ad, I put some photos, I made a single room available for free. Then I forgot about it, but last night through the platform Carla from Refugees Welcome contacted me: they have many people to accommodate in this Easter weekend where many families ready to welcome are traveling and even a place to stay for a few days is a lot. useful.

Today is the official announcement of the collaboration between Airbnb.org and Refugees Welcome Italia (RWI) to offer hospitality to people fleeing Ukraine and headed to Italy. On the one hand, the platform that since the beginning of the conflict has set in motion with a fundraising program and an appeal to its hosts to open their homes for free, an appeal that has led over 43,000 hosts in 160 countries to join, with 1,700 homes made available in Italy. On the other hand, RWI, the organization that promotes the mobilization of citizens to promote the social inclusion of refugees and refugees, which since the beginning of the emergency has been working with citizens and municipalities to offer hospitality at home to people fleeing Ukraine. Thanks to the agreement, from today the association can directly access the Airbnb.org platform, so as to be able to offer real-time hospitality to “refugees, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or gender”.

I hear Olga talking on the phone upstairs, maybe she is with her daughter, I also hear the voices of the children. Then she goes downstairs, she doesn’t want coffee, I insist and make her some tea. I vaguely remember the taste of tea in Ukraine, I was many years ago, but I remember well the sweetness of Kiev in spring, when none of this seemed to happen. He tells me that he doesn’t know what to say about Zelensky, about Putin who is the baddest person I know. His mother was Ukrainian, his father was Russian, his brother got married in Russia and can’t hear him because communications don’t work. He lost his husband two weeks ago, he tells me again but with almost blank eyes glassy, ​​and there’s not much I can answer. We are silent, I pour her another cup of tea.

Anyone interested in offering hospitality can register directly on the platform of Refugees Welcome Italia, while Airbnb Hosts, or those who want to use the platform during this emergency, can report their home on the Airbnb.org site.