Ukrainian war refugees: Striving towards safety while keeping the freedom

For three Saturdays in April, twenty-five people who had found shelter in Przemyśl and its surroundings or Warsaw in long-term care centers after the Russian invasion of Ukraine participated in activities designed to provide them with a friendly space for collective reflection and defining the conditions necessary to build a life after leaving the country at war.

Each meeting had two guiding questions posed from the perspective of the participants:

1. What gives us a sense of security and freedom? What is a barrier to planning the future in uncertain times?

2. What makes us feel strong and ready to face challenges? What takes away our strength?

3. What support do we receive to meet our needs? What do we need to stand on our feet more strongly?

The pilot participants met in the familiar spaces of one of the hospitality centers (Warsaw) and the Ukrainian House belonging to the Association of Ukrainians in Poland (Przemyśl), a place for cultural and social activities and an information point for refugees.

Organizers designed exercises to facilitate the exchange of experiences, knowledge and the expression of attitudes among people living in different hospitality centers. The deliberation took the form of a game-and-play design. The game design assumes building on the existing knowledge about the problem and choosing between alternative solutions. The play design is more open-ended and exploratory at the entry point. However, the two approaches can be creatively combined.

For example, in the exercise ranking the situations challenging Ukrainian refugees in their daily life in Poland, the participants randomly selected some challenges but also created some of their own based on their experiences. After they divided situations into resolvable and unresolvable, they worked together on step-by-step solutions to the former, leaving the latter to the institutions and organizations to respond during a direct interaction with the participants.

The activities were designed in cooperation with the Association of Ukrainians in Poland and organizational units of the local governments of Przemyśl and Warsaw, with the support of the Game Changers Academy. Before the process started, we also presented the pilot's goals and activities to potential participants during meetings in the hospitality centers in Warsaw.

The pilot is expected to bring practical conclusions regarding techniques for working with vulnerable groups and define their information needs and other institutional support. In the coming week, all pilot partners in Poland will meet to develop conclusions and a plan for further steps based on workshop materials, observation notes and feedback from refugees on the process.

Anna Przybylska, Borys Tencer

The Center for Delibration, Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw