Olesia Popovych studied Swedish at the University of Kyiv and, together with about 40 other students from all over the world, was to study the Swedish Institute's summer course at Axevalla folk high school.
But then the war broke out and then the school immediately took the students from Ukraine here - who have become valuable in the school's Swedish course for Ukrainian refugees.
- It has been very valuable.
We have a lot of help from Olesia, says teacher Gabrielle Scholander.
Accelerates learning
Refugees from Ukraine cannot receive education in Swedish via SFI because they have come under the mass refugee directive.
Therefore, it is folk high schools and others that educate.
Olesia's presence speeds up the learning of Swedish, according to the refugees who meet Swedish for the first time.
It has made it much easier for them to have difficult things explained in their own language.
Because knowing Swedish is central for the Ukrainians on the course.
- I think that if you live in a country and want to live in that country, you have to learn the language, culture and traditions of that country because it is also one's own internal culture, says Tatjana "Tanja" Lunova.
The pandemic stopped - since the war
Olesia was on her way to the Swedish Institute's course in both 2020 and 2021, but the pandemic put an end to that.
In 2022, it got significantly worse.
The war.
But the Ukrainian students who were going to Axvall were called here immediately.
So now Olesia is both teacher and student.
She helps her compatriots with the basics of Swedish - while she herself studies Swedish at an advanced level.
Kostyantyn Pronenko is one of those Ukrainians and having a teacher who knows both Ukrainian and Swedish is very valuable to him.
- You learn much faster and more efficiently if the teaching offers good quality translations with all the nuances and rich information.
Several of the country's folk high schools hold courses in Swedish for Ukrainian refugees.
For example in Karlskrona, Ludvika, Uppsala and Axvall.