Student Profile: Lisa Levytska

First-year MML student Lisa Levytska had been at Homerton for a term and half when, overnight, her country became a warzone. She describes how focusing on student life has helped her to cope with the news from home, and how her family have all become honorary Homertonians.

Icame to the UK aged 12, seven years ago, to go to boarding school in Yorkshire. My family live in Odessa, south-west Ukraine, right on the sea. It’s a very international city, and has always been somewhere that people have gone for their holidays. But suddenly being on the coast is a disadvantage – there’s no direct escape.

When I rst started at Cambridge, last October, my main reaction was shock that I was suddenly allowed out! After seven years at boarding school, I found myself thinking I was going to be told o every time I went out at night, and telling the Porters where I was going if I went to London for the weekend.

The situation in Ukraine has been very unpredictable for the whole time I’ve been in the UK. In fact the threat of Russian aggression was part of the reason why my sisters and I came to school here in the rst place. My mum had always wanted us to study in England and my dad wasn’t sure, but agreed we would be safer here.

People got used to micro-aggressions from Russia, but we didn’t think it would escalate. The invasion in February was a sudden slap in the face.

I’m the type of person who doesn’t keep up with the news, so it took me a little while to realise what had happened. I had a BBC noti cation on my phone, and then suddenly everyone posted on my Instagram feed. I woke up to 50 noti cations.

I’d had a couple of classes cancelled due to Covid, so I went to the gym, and then rang my dad. I wasn’t sure how to approach the invasion with my parents. We never talk about the bad stu . My dad brought it up, and I was crying in the gym – I kept trying to change the conversation and he kept shifting it back.

I became very withdrawn from the issue. I felt as though if I thought about it, it would become so all-consuming that I’d end up dropping out of Cambridge. That’s partly why I signed up as a student caller for the Homerton Telethon. I wanted to engage with things that would take up my time, so I wouldn’t have to engage with what was going on at home. My mum and my sister were reaching out to my grandparents and friends back home, getting testimonials on what was going on, and I couldn’t do that. I blocked it o .

My little sister turned 11 on 25 February, and my mum brought her to London to see my other sisters for halfterm. Then the invasion started and they realised they couldn’t go home. They’d spent their holiday money, and my dad couldn’t transfer money to them because the banks were freezing international transfers. The hotel they were staying in gave them another week for free, and then another. My sisters are in Sixth Form at two di erent schools, and they didn’t charge them for this term, and one of the schools took my youngest sister into Year 6 for free.

I spoke to the College about my nances, and Dhiru (Karia, the Finance O cer) was extremely helpful. He opened a hardship fund, which meant I could stay in College over Easter for free, and preloaded my student card so I could buy food each day. My Tutor, John-Mark Winstanley and Dhiru both separately applied for a hardship grant for me from the University before I’d even got round to applying for it myself. John-Mark’s been there for me at all times.

After two weeks, the hotel where my mum was staying gently made it clear that they couldn’t continue to put her up for free. At that point Homerton stepped in. Penny Barton, the Senior Tutor, o ered her accommodation in a at sometimes used by Fellows, and she’s been there ever since. My sisters come and stay with her there in the holidays – Homerton has become home to all of us.

My dad’s still at home in Odessa. He’s in his 40s, so he can’t leave Ukraine,

but he hasn’t yet had to ght. He loves his job, running a construction company building swimming pools and fountains, but he can’t work at the moment – there’s no work for him to do, because of the war. He’s trying to nd di erent ways of helping, paying his taxes ahead of time, donating equipment and money. He’s still out and about every day, whereas my grandmother has been living in her basement since the invasion. My grandparents, aunt and cousin are all still there – I don’t know when I’ll next see any of them.

My friends have been fantastic. I can’t talk about it all too much, and they understand that I’m not going to talk it out, but they help in other ways. I think I had survivor’s guilt for a while. I withdrew a bit from societies and my hobbies, and even gave up dancing which, as I used to dance professionally, was tough. But when I went out and had fun I’d come back and feel guilty.

Working on the Telephone Campaign allowed me to communicate with people about their lives rather than about what was going on in Ukraine, and showed me that I needed to get back out there and live my own life. I need to stay clear-headed for the sake of my education.

I really appreciate what the College has done for me and my family. I only came here in October – nobody owes me anything. They’ve been amazing.