A heartfelt presentation on Tuesday evening was made by our guest speaker, Chris Hrynevich, on the travails of Ukrainian refugees. Some 1,500 have arrived in Australia due to the Russian war and require accomodation and schooling for the young. The local Ukrainian community have done a great job in accomodating them but require funds to continue to help.  Many refugees want to and are returning to their war stricken homeland, having left their husbands behind to fight. However the dilemma for families  is that many of the young see a future here in Australia. The problem with many professionals staying is learning a new language with English being very different to Ukrainian and hard to learn.

 

                                  

 

To help the refugees is one of the Rotary Club of Essendon's concerns and have contributed to their fundraising.

 

Chris mentioned that Ukraine is famous for its drone warfare but on the flipside they are also famous for the management of amputees, with an extraordinary number of amputees from war injuries. The reason is that medical rescue teams can not get to the injured with Russian drone hanging  around for 40 minutes or so to attack the rescuers. The injured apply tourniquets. supplied by the government,  to stem their bleeding limbs resulting in oxygen starvation and resultant gangrene. 

 

A major preoccupation of the refugees is that their memory will be forgotten in the years to come. Therefore a collaboration was made to interview refugees, document their experiences with the war and their displacement and produce a documentary which resulted in the excellent publication "Many Colours of Home".

 

You can order a copy at