Kristína Lenárt, IOM Slovakia

I joined the International Organization for Migration in April 2022, two weeks after I returned from my volunteering in Ukraine. My desire to make an impact on the lives of people suffering the consequences of the war in Ukraine has brought me where I am today, IOM Slovakia.

I was in quarantine due to COVID-19, when the war broke out. I remember that morning when my father wrote me: “We have been attacked.” I couldn’t believe that this was happening in my homeland.

I was counting days until my quarantine would come to an end. Then I packed a light backpack and headed straight to the border with my brother to help as much as we could. We got in touch with several non-government organisations, who were active in providing humanitarian aid directly to affected areas in Ukraine.

Not only felt I it was my duty as a citizen of the world to help during this humanitarian crisis with all my efforts, but this was personal for me as well. I am Ukrainian. My family and friends, our fellow Ukrainians – people in Ukraine are living under the horrors of the war every day.

I vividly remember the last night I spent in Ukraine before I returned to Slovakia, where I was born and grew up. We were woken up by the sirens at 3:30 am in the town, were we used to spend precious moments of our childhood, Uzhhorod. I realised, that I was lucky enough to have had experienced this only once, while my family, friends, our nation, lives through it all the time. I knew I had to do everything I could to help people directly affected by the outcomes of the war. This is how I found IOM.

Being a part of an organization, which is mobilizing teams and actively responding to the growing humanitarian needs of Ukrainians, is an honour for me. Since I started at IOM, I have been engaged in the IOM – Airbnb.org project, providing temporary shelter to the most vulnerable groups of people, who are forced to flee their country. Thanks to the ongoing partnership between IOM and Airbnb, our team was able to facilitate accommodation for many Ukrainians and third-country nationals.

Our work looks different every day, from seeking vendors, creating partnerships with other organisations to providing guidance and assistance to our beneficiaries.

We are in a daily contact with people in a dire need of the roof above their heads, listening carefully to their stories of how they fled their home and left their life behind.

Each story is different. While one person has been living in a purpose-build container at a train station for two weeks; the other has just lost accommodation and needs urgent assistance as she is fighting cancer and cannot end up in an overcrowded facility.

Daily, we receive several requests with different stories. Alertness and promptness are particularly important when we receive urgent cases.

Today, we received two urgent cases from people, who were in a desperate need of shelter.

Apart of our work we seek willing hosts, who can provide immediate and prompt assistance. Luckily, we have established such relationship with one of our vendors, who was able to act promptly and accommodate these two households just a few hours after we received the request.

The immediate impact that you can see thanks to positive feedback from our beneficiaries has been the most rewarding experience in my professional life so far and I am proud to be part of IOM Slovakia.

More information about IOM assistance to people fleeing war in Ukraine.

This view presented herein do not necessarily represent the opinions of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).