SOCIETY
HELPING REFUGEES A REPORT AFTER THREE MONTHS OF CRISIS How many Ukrainian citizens have passed through Warsaw since the beginning of the war, and how many are currently staying there? What has the city’s assistance been like for refugees arriving from abroad, and what challenges does Warsaw now face because of their presence in the capital? The city presented on June 21 a report on the first three months of the refugee crisis that answers these questions.
B
etween February 24 and May 31, the period covered by the Warsaw report, 800,000 refugees passed through the capital. That’s about 40 percent of Warsaw’s total population. At its peak, about 300,000 people stayed in the city and had to be assisted: from simple information to hospital care. ”Three months ago, the war started and from the very beginning Warsaw helped as much as it could our neighbors from Ukraine. One thing worries me - I hear that this crisis is slowly coming to an end. We have a completely different impression that, in a way, it is only just beginning, because long-term and long-lasting actions are necessary. Today we must define what the needs will be in the future, because our guests will stay with us for longer”, said Rafał Trzaskowski, Mayor of Warsaw. Assistance to refugees in the capital is entering a new phase - after a period of emergency aid, then stabilization, the time for integration has come. Here, too, Warsaw is acting comprehensively. The city’s assistance covers all the
Rafał Trzaskowski, Mayor of Warsaw
The Warsaw Voice
important aspects of life: social integration, education, culture and help in entering the job market. “Today we are thinking about the future, about integration programs to integrate our guests into social life in Warsaw in such a way that whole families are as independent as possible and can freely use all city services. At the same time, all of us: Warsaw residents, are part of this process”, said Aldona Machnowska-Góra, Deputy Mayor of Warsaw.
TODAY WE ARE THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE, ABOUT INTEGRATION PROGRAMS TO INTEGRATE OUR GUESTS INTO SOCIAL LIFE IN WARSAW Another huge challenge for the city in connection with the ongoing situation is how to integrate the new residents, who constitute about 10 percent of the city’s population, and at the same time maintain the current quality of services? This problem affects all areas of Warsaw’s functioning: from urban transport to education to public safety. For example, the school infrastructure is at its limits. Finding and hiring hundreds of new teachers and expanding or building dozens of new institutions are activities that require time and enormous resources. “The necessary systemic solutions are still missing. If we fail today in integrating Ukrainian society into life in our city, certain processes will be irreversible. What we can do at the local government level, we are already doing - on many levels. But we need systemic solutions,” said Renata Kaznowska, Deputy Mayor of Warsaw. Summer 2022
37
