The NGO that has gone from having 112 Ukrainian host families to 40,000: "And whoever has empty flats..."

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"I don't know how to get in touch with organizations to be able to host families from Ukraine. I can host up to three families with children and quite large families, because I have a very large house."

"We are a married couple from the province of Barcelona with two rooms to accommodate a Ukrainian family and children. I can also help with the logistics of moving."

"I would like to know what I have to do to pick up a child from Ukraine. I have little space, but I could have a girl or a boy, preferably with his mother, because if it is tragic to be separated from his whole world, I can not even imagine what he has to be without his mother".

The Spanish NGOs and associations that are dedicated to the reception of Ukrainian children are receiving these days thousands of messages like these extracted from social networks.

An example of the magnitude of the wave of solidarity that the war in Ukraine has awakened is the case of

, a small NGO that has been bringing Ukrainian minors to Spain for years to spend the summer and Christmas holidays.

Before the war it had a list of 112 families willing to host.

This Friday, the number of requests reached 15,000;

on Saturday morning, 26,000, and by the afternoon it was already up to 40,000.

"Right now we are completely overwhelmed," says

from Salamanca , spokesperson for Nad Children and foster mother.

10 days ago she took little

out of Ukraine .

"She was with us at Christmas and we have her now because her mother, on the Monday before the war broke out, asked us to take her away. On Thursday, February 24, just when the war began, we managed to do it. She comes from

, from the Chernobyl zone, north of Kiev. He is eight years old," he says.

Yesterday, Saturday, the girl's mother and grandmother also arrived in Salamanca after managing to leave the Ukraine by road, where they left the father.

Procedures

Cristina praises the generosity of the people who have offered, but explains that it is not as easy to become a host family as they think.

"They call us and tell us: 'Minors are already leaving Ukraine, I want one,' but what they don't know is that they have to go through some paperwork," she says.

"You have to interview the family to see if it's viable, they have to present documentation that they have no history of criminal and sexual crimes, registration, medical reports that certify that you don't have problems that prevent you from caring for a minor, such as addictions to drugs or alcohol or infectious diseases. In addition, you have to pass an interview with a psychologist, which obviously with the volume of requests from the NGO, that is not going to be possible. And then it is the sub-delegation of the Government of the province to which it corresponds the one that has to approve the reception, the NGO cannot do it directly. We are the link", he explains.

Another problem faced by families who want to foster is knowing how long the minors will be able to stay with them.

"It is another of the great unknowns, because Spanish legislation allows them to have them for a maximum of 90 days in a row in the case of foreigners, but now that limitation will have to be removed for Ukrainian children, because we do not know how long they will need to be here."

And he calls for people who have empty homes to offer them: "We have many offers from host families, but not houses for entire families who have managed to leave. People who have a flat and do not rent it, the same is good moment to give life to those flats doing them a great favor to those who come".

Certificate of "optimal family"

Mayte Molina

, a 45-year-old from Malaga, married, mother of two daughters aged 14 and 16, has contacted the

and the Ukrainian embassy to offer to take in a minor.

"I have done it because if the same thing happened to me in Spain, that I had to stay to rebuild my country and take my daughters away from the focus of the problem, I would need someone to take them in. I put myself in the shoes of the Ukrainian parents who are experiencing this tremendous situation," he says.

Mayte was already in a foster program of the Junta de Andalucía and took care of a child between 2011 and 2012. "I have the certificate from the Junta de Andalucía that granted me the optimal family status for both temporary and permanent foster care" , says hopeful that her suitability as a foster mother continues.

"What is happening is extraordinary and it would help a lot if the procedures to locate the children were streamlined, because all of a sudden we were looking for families who have passed that exam... When I carried out the procedures, it was three months until I obtained the certification. With the avalanche that is coming to Europe, there are not enough families in the NGOs."

Nerea and Javier with their children. THE WORLD

The same as Mayte, that the procedures be streamlined, they ask, from Salamanca,

and her husband,

.

Both have two children from previous relationships and two in common: six in total.

Nerea is a friend of Cristina's and was encouraged to take her in after seeing her with Anastasiia this Christmas.

"I gave her a little gift of some painted slippers and we were having coffee and the girl was as if she had never seen a toy in her life. It seemed magical to me and I proposed to my family that we also take in a child."

Nerea planned to do it in the summer, but the war has precipitated everything.

Two weeks ago she formally asked Childhood of Nad to include her as a foster family.

"We need everything to be speeded up more, they need it, because with the situation they have... Every time we see how they are on the news... It's overwhelming, distressing, it causes a lot of impotence."

The image of Anastasiia with Cristina and her family that illustrates this report -with Christmas pajamas- was taken two months ago by the Russian photographer

, Cristina's neighbor.

"For her it is being a real hell because she loves her country madly and she believes that this man [Vladimir Putin] has lost his mind," says Cristina.

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