• In Toulouse, a telephone platform has been created to specifically answer questions from Ukrainian refugees.

  • The “listeners”, like the students Maria and Arina, speak Ukrainian so as not to add incomprehension to uprooting.

Delicate to appease a mother "without news for 20 days of her children who remained in Marioupoul" or to reassure a family who lives in a gymnasium about their future.

This is the role of Arina, a 22-year-old Ukrainian, and her friend Maria, a 20-year-old Moldavian who spent her childhood in the country at war.

Respectively students of modern literature and law, the two young girls jumped directly from their partials to their small office on rue des Salenques, in downtown Toulouse, whose trash is overflowing with empty coffee cups.

They are part of the team of five "listeners" who have taken up residence in these premises made available by the county council to accommodate the telephone platform - reachable on 05 34 245 245 - responsible for answering "all kinds of questions" from "displaced" Ukrainians.

They are about a thousand to have arrived since the beginning of the conflict, according to the census of the prefecture of Haute-Garonne.

But others have arrived outside official channels and need to be informed of their rights.

Calls also from Ukraine

Arina and Maria answer about twenty phone calls a day.

Some are challenging and can last more than an hour, others a few minutes.

Students don't have all the answers.

Especially when, by a strange effect of social networks, they are called from Ukraine to find out about a train timetable.

“But the important thing is that we speak in their language, that reassures them enormously”, insists Maria.

As the flow of refugees dries up, those who call from Toulouse and its surroundings, in particular need answers on their possibility of working or obtaining independent accommodation to resume a semblance of normal life.

"There are also people who offer help," says Arina, also a member of the Ukraine Libre association, and delighted with this "chance" to participate in the support of her people.

This Monday, the team at 28, rue des Salenques will be reinforced by new social workers (from the department, the metropolis or the State), which will allow it to also ensure a “physical reception” of refugees.

"We must be able to deal with very different situations and build solutions outside of official schemes, because half of the cases do not fit into the boxes", explains Jean-Michel Fabre, vice-president of the departmental council in charge of Housing.

A few days ago, for example, a group of deaf refugees arrived in Toulouse.

World

War in Ukraine: More than 70,000 refugees in France benefit from the allowance for asylum seekers

Culture

War in Ukraine: Singing, the act of resistance of Ukrainian artists who are starting a tour in Europe

  • Company

  • War in Ukraine

  • Toulouse

  • Refugees

  • Occitania