• Soka, a Breton company that extracts and processes kaolin, is directly affected by the war in Ukraine where it has a factory.

  • The company chartered a bus to shelter the wives and children of its Ukrainian employees who remained fighting.

  • The leader of the company is now seeking to integrate these refugees by sending children to school and helping women find jobs.

Above all, she does not want to pull the blanket to her, just ensuring that she wants to "bring her small stone to the building".

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Séverine Dudot has her eyes riveted on Ukraine.

Because the Armorican Kaolin Company (Soka) which she heads is directly impacted by the conflict, which entered its 28th day on Wednesday.

Based in Quessoy in the Côtes-d'Armor, the company extracts and processes kaolin, a white clay used to make tiles, porcelain or animal feed.

In addition to its three quarries in Brittany, Soka also operates two sites in Ukraine with a factory located in Koziatyn, 200 km south-west of kyiv.

From the first hours of the conflict, Russian bombardments hit a military airport located about 70 km away.

The general manager immediately took the decision to stop the activity of her factory in Ukraine, where she employs 70 employees, and to repatriate her French executives.

She could have stopped there.

But the astonishment quickly gave way to mobilization within the company to come to the aid of Ukrainian colleagues.

"Their reception must be long-term"

Quickly, a chain of solidarity was set up with the shipment of food and medical equipment to Ukraine and Poland.

A bus chartered by Soka also took the direction of Ukraine to evacuate the families of the employees of the factory.

"The men are mobilized on the front but it was obvious to us that it was necessary to shelter their loved ones", indicates Séverine Dudot.

On March 10, around sixty refugees, around thirty women and as many children landed in Quessoy, leaving behind them a country ravaged by war.

They found refuge in emergency accommodation made available to them in the town and in neighboring municipalities.

The families in the shelter now raise the question of their integration.

“Even if they still hope to return very quickly to their country, they know very well that the conflict will not stop overnight,” underlines the company manager.

Their reception must therefore be long-term”.

A call to business leaders in the region

This starts with the schooling of children.

Ukrainian primary school students have thus returned to school for a few days and this will soon be the case for middle and high school students.

Thanks to the temporary protection status set up in the European Union, women also have the possibility of working.

"It's very important for them because they want to contribute to the French society that welcomes them and be financially independent," says Séverine Dudot.

Activating her network, the general manager of Soka has therefore just launched an appeal to companies in the Saint-Brieuc and Lamballe basins to open their doors to these Ukrainian refugees, who all worked in their country in shops, industries or in the agricultural sector.

“There is also an architect, a teacher or a web designer”, specifies the manager.

If the language barrier can be an obstacle, Séverine Dudot ensures that these young women are "quickly employable on simple jobs with a certain repeatability of gestures".

Our file on the war in Ukraine

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Mobility is not an obstacle either because these women have the right to drive in France.

"We'll just have to find them a vehicle or set up a carpooling system," said the manager.

His call seems in any case to have been heard by his colleagues since several Ukrainian refugees will begin a trial period in a few days.

Nantes

What does the “temporary protection” granted to Ukrainian refugees offer?

Paris

In order not to have “the broken heart”, the interpreters with the refugees put “the distance”

  • Brittany

  • Child

  • Refugees

  • Women

  • Society

  • War in Ukraine

  • Solidarity

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