Many People of Poland Welcome Ukrainian Refugees With Open Arms

To me, one of the most disturbing aspects of the Ukraine invasion, and it's safe to assume for anyone, has been the treatment of women and children and the incredible trauma they've endured. In my last interview, I spoke with a courageous CEO and mother living in Kyiv, Anastasia Barychenko, who has taken extreme measures for her safety and the safety of her children during the war. But what about the other millions of children and women who are fleeing. According to a Reuters report, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba alleged that there have been numerous cases of Russian soldiers raping women in Ukraine. In 2008, the UN Security Council noted that women and girls were a target for rape during invasions, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, and instill fear. But where have the over 2 million people who have fled Ukraine gone? Who has opened up their borders to most Ukrainians? Well, Poland is leading the way, taking in more than 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees, a majority of whom are women and children, since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24th. Droves of Ukrainian women and children packed with almost nothing in their bags are welcomed by nearby Poland, and there have been many stories of welcoming homes. With beds made and open arms. One such welcoming person and Polish leader and CEO is Joanna, who will be joining us here today. Joanna is co-founder and VP of Futurecallers, who reskills and upskills Ukrainian and other professional women for IT positions. Her motto, "Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming," resonates deeply for Ukrainian women fleeing to Poland. Getting small things done together like cooking evening dinner, volunteer work, and pizza night with Ukrainian pop music fills her days. She has taken in 3 Ukrainian women, Natasha, Alina, and Marina, who have joined her home 2 weeks ago. They communicate through Google Translate, and it's been challenging for everyone. Just last night, she heard laughter from the girls' room for the first time. Joanna's dedication to Ukrainian women does not stop there. She has used her resources and company, Future Callers, to help reskill Ukrainian women to get IT jobs in Poland. Most women refugees do not have the resources to get jobs in their new country. Joanna is turning all of this around. It's not enough for Joanna to open up her home. She now is thinking ahead to their future. Living Her Vision: Tomorrow Belongs to Those Who Can Hear It Coming. Joanna, welcome to the LinkedIn Live Leader Show on Newsweek.

Hi, to me, to the show, and hello, everybody, from Warsaw.

Joanna, what an amazing thing you're doing. How are you today?

Thank you. Extremely intense because we're trying to work at the same time to projects and helping volunteers. And, and I have this one of this kind of refugees kind of center which I'm helping with fulfillment of their needs and doing activities for the children, for the mothers. Tomorrow we're taking 15 kids to film, uh, which is going to be Ukrainian. So it's extremely, extremely intensive times we have here in Warsaw, but I'm not alone. There's 5,500 volunteers just like me. Every house I know are open to start, you know, a life for refugees. People are going to— doing all they can just to accommodate and make their life as bearable as is possible in situation everyone from Ukraine found themselves.

Well, this is just incredible what you've done and how you've opened up your heart and your home and your profession to help reskill Ukrainian woman. It's just, it's just extraordinary. I, I want to kind of go back and we'll start with going back. What has this last month been like for you? What has it been like up to this, this day? Um, bring me through that. Tell me more about that.

Well, you know, we woke up on Friday, on— it was Friday, Thursday, and first thing I did, I call, uh, a lady who works at my house to find out is any way we can support her and her family. And, and since then, you know, we all start crying and we all start thinking what we can do. And immediately, just just incredible what's happening in Poland. People start work, start to try to go to the, to the, to the actually any possible way with their private cars to drive to the borders, to bring Ukrainians from the borders to any cities, to any places, mostly to Warsaw. People are starting organizing themselves to, you know, for the shelters. There's right away a Facebook's website, Facebook's page, which was already is like almost 1 million people in Poland were doing help for Ukrainians. So we intensively started to think how we can help, either going to the borders, preparing our houses. There was already a list of our NGOs were starting listing houses for people. So my Friday was basically tense in that way. Saturday I joined as a volunteer for the Warsaw center for refugees, and I was supplying for the food, for all the important elements for the kids. And since then, I'm working on this kind of refugee center which has moved to the closer to my neighborhood. And I'm— and everyone is involved, you know. We— there's so much work to do on every level, from the medical help to the people who are in Ukraine, to the borders, to now actually thinking about how to employ these people, how to get them help, how to help the children who have been traumatized. And it was important how to support women.

So tell me about this. When, when you greet, uh, and you found, uh, refugees, how did you go through that process? What was the process to find and to sort of hold yourself out to help Ukrainian women? What was that process like for you?

Well, it's very simple because right away, you know, we have unbelievable NGOs and unbelievable individual Citizen Movement. So people right away start, uh, as kind of helpline saying, if you want to offer your house, please fill this form and we'll call you. And in matter basically of 12 hours since I fill the form and kind of offer my house, uh, this lady from this help center called me. They're all volunteers, I have to say. This non-government help is all NGOs. And they say, we have these 3 girls, would you like to help and provide them accommodation. Then I was at the center and for those American boys, students, and they said, can we— can you take them home? Because they had no place to live. So basically everyone just opened their houses. And if you think about it, 93% of all the refugees which are in Poland are in the houses. They're not in the camps. So now actually we are overloaded because there is a lot of refugees who come from Ukraine want to stay in big cities like in Warsaw. There's a lot of openings for them in smaller cities and even villages, but they want to still stay in Warsaw. So now we have really a crisis, and that's why we call in to other countries to help and help us do the same thing as we do— be a host and bring the people in the home, integrate them with your society, uh, with the schools and everything that's done.

So if you were to speak to Ukrainian women and children right now, Ukrainian women, and said what they can do right now, because people can't hear us right now in Ukraine. So if you were to speak to them and to open up, sort of, all open up people in Poland to come, right, what would they need to do? What would I, as a Ukrainian woman, do?

Get in touch with me. I will reach you and we will help you to organize. For example, the best thing if you can do, for example, to declare that you're gonna take 30 women for the women because they want to live in groups or they don't want to go alone. And, and then you can, for example, this, this ladies can have a visa to Canada, they get a, get a transport, and you assure them accommodation and probably work. We'll help you to send them abroad because we want them to have decent life and we want them as quickly possible to integrate with societies and find a nice welcoming home, just as we do it in Poland. So you can contact me and I can provide you with the information to the NGOs which help to organize this thing. Because at the moment, it's a— there's not much yet, the centralized organized sort of NGO or whatever is what it is. There's a lot of places, there's a lot of hosts who have women in their homes, and now they're thinking what they should do next. Maybe should go outside Poland and start the life, or they should stay in Poland and, and continue their life. So we are very— we can manage on gathering this kind of group of women with the families because there's also grandmothers, there's and teenagers, there's sometimes, you know, adolescent son. So often we have a group of 6, 8 women who like to live in a group. So there's some— sometimes people call me, can you send me a mother with a year-old boy or a year-old girl? Say, this is difficult because they don't want to live alone. If you think about it, think about a cohort, 30 people, 50 people who we can basically send abroad and help them, and you can help them and become just a host as we are in Poland.

It's just amazing. And so, so for those, those who are in Poland right now with you and who are under Poland care, in your care, uh, how many are you seeing want to stay there and see possibilities for a career, a life? And if they do, what are they seeing for themselves?

Well, this is where actually we stand in, because, uh, we think that white— kind of blue-collar workers, women who are actually, uh, this kind of they're going to be very well implemented, integrated, because there is so many jobs for them in Poland. But we worry about the white-collar workers, the women who are in profession like law firms, being in advertising, in being maybe in even in technology. If you think 45% of STEM are in Ukraine are women, which is extremely high position. So we see this really group of this woman who are among this refugees, which is at the moment 1,300,000, and we want to help them to retrain to tech jobs so they can be quickly integrated to fantastic opportunity which is in, in IT. And we can retrain them and help them to start working from Poland to as a remote worker, to work for US, to work for EU countries. And maybe, you know, when the war finish, hopefully as soon as possible, they can come back to Ukraine and stay there and work as IT professional if they decide to. So we want to get them dignified jobs, and we don't want them to drop from the white-collar, you know, very qualified kind of careers. And because there's not enough jobs like that because they don't speak Polish, so they will kind of drop to the blue-collar workers. So that's what we wanted to do, is to retrain the women who speak English and they have a willingness to become an IT As you know, IT is a very, very wide career path and we want to help them. So we organizing now with the support of companies and we invite you also from US if you can join us, if you want to endorse someone, if you want to sponsor this kind of program so we can do training for women to go to Python developer, to be a Scrum Master, to be cloud practitioners with, for example, Amazon Web Services, which is partner. So this kind of programs we want to start. So we quickly retrain women so they can get a dignified employment, not dropping to white blue-collar work.

It's a huge business opportunity for the world. As we know, Upwork shut down all Russian and Belarus workers, all software developers. And Ukraine— people who are fleeing from Ukraine now have a unique opportunity, and the world has a unique opportunity for people like you who are upskilling and reskilling. People who are just fleeing and are, are under such duress and stress, the enormous stress that they have. So you, you had mentioned kind of, uh, 1.3 million people and growing. I mean, that's a lot of people. So the question I have is, you know, do you, are you, do you need help? What resources and help do you need?

Yes.

With that, tell us more about what, what that help is. Yeah.

Okay, well, we need help. We need you guys to join, to kind of reach your government and tell them that you really know we need to help because our government doesn't listen to that, and he, they themselves that we're doing extremely great work. But the job is done by the individuals, by the citizens, by NGOs. Now we need to have professional help, which means we won't have— we need to have a salary and jobs for people who are now working with refugees. This cannot be done by volunteers. So please reach out to our government, say that it has to get professional help. We know there are great companies, great organizations who can come here and provide support. Second thing you can help is to get, as I mentioned, you know, maybe some Ukrainian diaspora living in Canada, Ukrainian diaspora living in UK, and you can organize yourself and we can send you, we can provide you with people who can be directed to US, to Canada, and become host as we ourselves. So we can help you because we're not going to manage to get all these people with the decent jobs in decent accommodation. So we think some people will need to go outside of Poland. Third thing is like What we do is to help us to reskill women, and you can become our partner. You can be endorsing, we can be— you can be the company which basically gonna give jobs to the woman who we're gonna train. And of course, we need still any support in terms of, you know, with medications, with things like, you know, things help as food for the kids and all of that kind of things which just has to be done. But, uh, and we should be scheduled directly, uh, directed to NGOs organization, uh, which actually the ones who are now serving all of these women at the host houses or actually in the shelters, which is still very limited. So yes, there's a lot of things you can do and help us.

And they run the gamut from professional to medical and other. So it's the, the needs are definitely at the top level right now. So if there are certainly so many companies that require help with, with programming, with network administration, with Scrum Masters, project management. So to the companies out there today, and largely people that we speak with are companies, entrepreneurs, their CEOs, their coaches or consultants, or they're people just really concerned and want to help. And, you know, there's— so tell me, like, if you do want to hire, you know, Ukrainian reskilled workers, would it just be to go to you and ask you? Is there a central repository? You know, because We all want to help. And there's many people, I'd say it's safe or reasonable, assume there's a lot of people want to help. So we go to you and we say, and you have a way to identify who they are and who's being reskilled. Is that, is that kind of, is that how—

Yes, I mean, this is what we do because we are online company of reskilling company, career change company. We are operating in Poland for 5 years. We have about 3,000 people we retrain. So we have very well capabilities to do that. We are now in the process of work on translating all the kind of tutorials or materials and getting teachers to— so we can do it in English. So if you are interested in hiring a career woman who are going to change jobs to IT and you say, yes, I want to endorse the training, or are you going to endorse her— we're going to hire them once you finish the training, please contact me because we need to have partners who are going to be both help us to finance this program and partners who are going to get jobs, uh, once they provide jobs from remote jobs, because all the training is that we do is remote, and we, we believe in remote work after that. So, um, yes, contact me if you would like to endorse this kind of program or you want to help to, to get jobs for women who are going to train. We, we think it's going to take us about 3 months to have already people from ready to, uh, to work and start their careers in IT. And we are working with many. We, since we have such a huge network, we know how to reach the white-collar Ukrainians who are willing to start this kind of retraining programs.

Well, let's go to the personal side, the human side of all this, which is interesting. They're all personal and human, of course, but Natasha, Alina, Marina, who you took in. Yes. And so how did they— they came in and they joined your home. I'm hearing about all these wonderful people like you who are opening their homes Are they there now, Natasha, Lena, and Marina? Are they?

No, I'm at the office. Actually, at the moment they're volunteering because they involve as volunteers as well. Yesterday they worked at the shelter with children. Today they're working with our neighbors who are starting a neighborhood center for Ukrainians. So they are there to help to just to make this happen. They don't speak English, unfortunately. We communicate through my limited Russian and with this new application, which is HiHi, SayHi. So it's better than even Google Translate. And someone from LinkedIn suggested it to me. So thank you very much because it really improved my life. They are not the ones who are going to be typically trained because they don't have this English. They're starting learning Polish. And I think next week we're going to start helping them to find jobs, but they are limited because of the language. But they're doing well. They're starting going more and more outside exploring our neighborhood. And I want to try to get them, you know, to working with the children and mothers who are at the shelter. So I think it's something they can see themselves, are they actually providing to the community. And this is the way of integrating them as well. So I think, you know, from what we know when we talk to psychologists, and because there's so much already a kind of network, we know we have to support them and give them time. We know we have to let them be in their room room. And it's really because they're going through a huge trauma. Fortunately, Natasha, Irina, and Miriam, they came to me right away, so didn't spend too much time in the, you know, in the underground, living in, you know, in wagons of metro. And I know women who are in the shelters, they show me the pictures and how it was. And we're getting much more damaged people at the moment because they've been in during the war for, you know, a week, 10 days, and they had— this has been a nightmare. So they are fortunate to leave Kiev right away because they came to Poland on basically a day after the war started. But it is traumatized, and we all extremely want to help them. And that's why actually I want to reach more to also the white collars, because I think they're going to be— they need help to kind of adjust it to kind of life they might have to lead here in Poland for some time before the war ends and, you know, the life becomes normal again in Ukraine.

And that's what I'm seeing is a lot of the white collar, as you call it, are staying in Ukraine and Kyiv in their locations and digging in, if you will. And the question I have for you is, you know, what are ways that they can make their way in? Because like you said, the damaged people, people are becoming more damaged psychologically and harmed physically, is increasing by the day, if not by the hour. And I'd like to learn more about that as well from you in terms of what you've seen in terms of emotional, physical damage. But first, you know, well, tell me more first about that.

How—

what kind of physical, emotional damage have you seen, and how has it changed as of late?

Well, we noticed that they are very closed and they don't want to, for example, leave. For example, In the shelters where I'm volunteering, we will try to do activities for the children. And we thought of taking— leaving the mothers for a while so they can relax and take children outside to the park or going to the, you know, kind of playground and kind of activities. It took us 2 days because women didn't want to separate from the children because they felt so much drama. So they would close themselves in rooms and they stay like that. 2 days later, we were We were able to bring 15 kids to this kind of trampoline playground special place, and mothers join us and they're extremely happy. And I know we're starting small by small steps to open that up, but it would take time. They have to feel secure. That's why I think it's so important. And so I'm so proud that we succeeded to getting all these people into the homes because it's so different that you are with the family, that you are already in kind of, you know, homemade cooking, that you are, uh, at the same time you are not with the crowd of your other colleagues from Ukraine, but at least you are, you know, in a kind of very safe and warm environment. But as now there's, you know, less and less space for people to in their houses, so we are starting to have this kind of shelters, temporary shelters, because some people are leaving to find a house, for example, outside of Poland, or they're going out from outside our country. But it's tremendous stress. They feel, uh, they're closed. They don't want to speak too much. And, you know, it's hardly to see them a smile. So like, they seem to be extremely in focus on themselves, to think about the faults, about what's going to be the future, um, if they're going to be managed to have decent life, how they're going to manage with the kids. And, you know, there's a tremendous need for psychologists at the moment. I was at this— we all need help for the children who've been, you know, living with bombs and living in shelters on the underground in Kyiv, in different Kharkov, in different cities. You know, it just— it just— they had to separate from the fathers. It just— just, you know, we cannot even imagine what they went through. So really takes them time to accommodate and takes them time to— to live through this horrors we have— they had. And That's why it's very important to get them integrated with their normal life, with normal people, with societies, with other children. But it has to be— it's a process which is going to take a week, 2 weeks before then they can actually enter normal life. But I always seen, you know, the 15 kids were with me on Sunday. They were laughing. They were very happy. They were reaching for, you know, for churritos, and they were reaching for for fruits, and tomorrow we're going to cinema for other kids. So, you know, I will let you know, but I think it's a process, but I'm very positive we will manage.

I remember you saying that you're listening now to your Ukrainian pop music and hearing some laughter in the girls' room, which is different than before.

First time. First time.

For the first time, and that must be—

A week later. It was amazing.

And I hear this about post-traumatic stress syndrome, um, and, uh, I, I'm talking to Anastasia Barychenko from Kyiv. She's there still, um, and, uh, you know, the, the things you're talking about is it, it's getting worse, and people are coming in, and there's a complete acknowledgment of the PTSD. And you, you touched on the unconscionable elements, leaving your mother, uh, going across to another country, leaving everything behind, all of your possessions, and only having your mother to be with, uh, is just unconscionable. It's just, it's not something we can imagine. Um, and, uh, you know, I think my—

no clothes, no toys, you know, you lost everything because there's no space. You know, they leave and they have— they don't have any, you know, any luggage at all. They have to get everything here in Warsaw, in Poland, And it's, you know, but my great-grandmother did that too in 1917. With the Bolshevik Revolution, she had to leave from Ukraine because we're Polish landowners, and she left a huge, huge possession, huge palace with two children and backpack, and she ran to the forest. And, you know, she had to— for weeks she traveled across the border and moved to Poland, and she lost everything, you know, amazing wealth was just once and for all finished. So I know what they're going through. And, uh, but you know, it's not like you open the door and yes, we— of course this— they cried, they said how grateful they are. But you know, it's— they, they— it's so tangible because they lost so everything and they don't know. They didn't even thought about going to Warsaw or Kraków or for us, no one would thought about going in our— to the cities in March. They probably thought, want to go to Rome, to Dubai. And then, you know, they're here and they don't know how to find themselves, you know. So there's simple things like, you know, showing them how to, how to use metro, how to use the tram. Thank God everything's free for Ukrainians at the moment, so they don't have to go and want to buy tickets. But it's a simple thing to show them, you know, how they manage. It just, it just, uh, you know, one thing is to get out, and then second thing is to find yourself. It's totally different country. Just like, just think if they go through the border there's all these people, individuals with the sign, we take you home. But they don't know whose person is, they don't know where they're gonna go, they don't know if they're not gonna be, you know, in some terrible situation. And you have to make decision at the point where you're gonna go, who you're gonna go. So it just, it just, it is terrible. I've, you know, it's my heart, it breaks every day in single pieces when you hear and see the situation. But you know Ukrainian women are extremely proud and extremely strong. I don't— I didn't see much crying. I saw a lot of pride. I saw women who show me pictures of the life they had, wonderful houses, wonderful cars, good living. And you know, they're going to survive because they have so much strength in themselves. And you know, they really want to do it. Some of them right away say, I want to work, I want to, you know, be independent. Help me to find job. You know, there's so much strength, there's so much kind of conviction, this yes, we can do it, and so much focus on already on the future, on making myself well, and for me and for my children. So I really believe that we all gonna make it, and with the help of the Korean women who make this terrible, terrible experiment which was done by Putin successful for them, they will survive. And because they're strong and they know what they want.

And it really is testament to, uh, to Polish people, people in Poland, how wonderfully open you are and understanding. For you to just even understand the strength of, of the Ukrainian people and to see that it's their strength, they're not worried, they're not— they don't have this kind of a sadness that's deep and crying and begging for help at all. It's not that kind of refugee. It's a strong, capable people who are ready to move to the next level in the life because they're resilient. They're resilient. And you recognize that, and so many others. You had mentioned about how there's this sign that people have, 'We take you in,' and there has to be a level of trust. When that occurs. How can people in Poland overcome that level of trust, sort of to help Ukrainian people understand that they are safe with them, that they won't be harmed, that they perhaps are going to be— they'll be helped? How is that— is there a way that that is becoming more standard, or you could standardize it, or have some tips for people? To help them overcome, get to that trust?

As I mentioned, there's already, you know, huge movement, and I'm really, really impressed by what our society is doing. And I think we should get all Nobel Prize because, you know, everyone is involved and the caring, opening I never see in my life, really. So people saying about, you know, preparing the rooms, preparing, you know, when people already know that someone's coming to the house, there's a post immediately on Facebook, hey guys, there's a lady with 3 small kids coming, can you please help me to get the full— the clothing? Because they don't have the toys. And in a matter of hours, they get everything because the neighbors right away bring things to their house. So, uh, if they need to get— you know, there's people who basically furnishing the houses. They have apartments which are free, for example, they wanted to rent it, they don't— they're not renting it, they give it for free. So they're furnishing furnishing quickly. In matter, my friend, she just did that, uh, 2 days ago. She brought a family of 8. And in matter, she said, you know, I put a post on Facebook that I'm furnishing this, I'm leaving, giving this my apartment for the family. And I said, I need beds, I need this and that. She said, I woke up in the morning, I had a list of my friends saying that everything is already provided. I didn't have to do anything. So that's one thing. Second thing, people want to do, like, you know, preparing home cooking, asking them, and they already tips like what kind of Ukrainian people like to eat. And, you know, they're preparing a box, they're preparing music, they're preparing, you know, small things. So they're going to— but the most important, what I'm missing, I thought they need to have their own space, closed space, because probably even for few, even days, they're going to want to be just stay in the room because they want to kind of get the first space place, they're going to feel comfortable and mostly secure. And then you open up a little bit. So there's a lot of, you know, tips in terms of how you prepare your house for entering of the, of the Ukrainian family. And then of course, then you're starting of, you know, communicating about, you know, getting the support for the children. Do you need psychological support? Integrating with the— you've got all the schools and kindergartens already now free and open for Ukrainian children. And there are Ukrainian teachers being hired, they're mostly volunteers, the psychologists help. So, and so we kind of just tried already how we can get the support for them to feel well and comfortable and, and damage control, because we have that. I know we, we get everyone, we get people who are— have cancers, we have people who are psychiatrists and help, you know, you just think we need We have the whole, whole society, uh, mostly of course without men, but you know, there's people who have tremendous difficulties. We have animals, you know, people coming with their puppies and, uh, there's big dogs, small dogs, cats, and you know, you have to— so people find them a house who are gonna be okay with animals. You know, it's just like, just think, like, it's one day there's a bomb and everyone just run, run for their life, and we have you know, whole across society of different people. And, you know, in Poland here, you know, we are used to a lot of Ukrainians, but usually they were, you know, blue-collar workers. And now we get, you know, doctors, we have lawyers, we have students, we have, you know, opera singers, we have every possible person from society from Ukraine who never thought of leaving of their country. They feel very well, they're very comfortable, and they're extremely happy. They love the country. You know, that's why also when we ask, why don't you want to leave? And they say, you know, I like Warsaw because Warsaw reminds me of Kyiv. I want to be in Poland because I'm close to my country. You have similar culture, you have similar language, and I want to be close just in case, you know, my family will leave because there's a lot of people who don't want to leave, but they decide to leave the border. I want to quickly able to go and help them to come from the borders to safe place I am in now in Poland.

I mean, who wouldn't want to go to you? The, the way that your, your hospitality, the way you open up to people, the way that you, you bring people in, it's so kind. Um, and it, it's really true.

And I'm not, I'm not unique. I, I just, as I speak, I have phone calls and phone calls on my friends for doing the same. I have friend who she organized along with huge, huge community of her friends, a welcome center by the station in Warsaw, and where they have provided food for everyone. They have to support, and the citizens who doing as a volunteer. So, you know, there's an unbelievable movement all across Poland now, in Warsaw, all across Poland, that everyone want to help. It just— I don't know, it just— I never see anything like that in the world, that you have this— everyone wants to help and make them as much as possible and try to get the damage control as quickly as possible so these people can live and survive and they can, you know, be fine here. Because maybe because we never got this in 1939, I don't know, but maybe because we know what it's like to be an immigrant. I know I was an immigrant for 12 years in Canada and I got wonderful support, and that's why I believe this way we have to pay back. But it's truly, it's all everyone in Poland. So please don't listen to these terrible things they try to do, black PR, because just, just come and see what's happening. See the volunteers at the train stations, see the volunteers at the borders, people giving food, their own food. They're making food, sandwiches, soups, and providing. You know, at just the moment in my neighborhood, there's a center doing, and by volunteers, uh, support. So there's no one in Poland who's not involved in printing, accommodating, and supporting Ukrainians in Poland.

And it sounds like it's growing because you're bringing in Ukrainian refugees and they're volunteering as well and helping others, and you're forming a new culture really of Ukrainians and Polish. So it's, I mean, what a wonderful way of bringing two cultures together and creating something even better. It sounds like the beginning of really a transformation for Poland and for Europe.

Yeah, and I hope they'll be joined. I show— I hope the movement we start in Poland is going to go across borders, and I want you to become hosts as we are, uh, because I believe only that way— don't build shelters, don't build refugee camps, build a network of hosts who help and accommodate and integrate people to the societies. So we're going to be— we won't create ghettos. We don't want to have France ghetto, ghettos. We don't want to have increased ghettos. We won't have people— if every family, or one of the 10 family brings a woman with a kid, or a few women with kids, just think about how we're going to save the societies, how we're going to create a wonderful, safe, and, you know, sustainable societies.

And that's how— that's what really attracted me to your story. Joanna, is that you're not only bringing in people and you're helping them and you're helping them with volunteers and all their psychological aspects. You've said, well, it's not enough. I want to look at the sustainable aspects of this so that we can help you sustain within the society. So you used your company and your resources and said, I'm going to help upskill and reskill, which is what I do anyway. And so what an amazing thing you're doing. You know, it really is an example for the world. And I, I hope it is. It really truly is. It's a, it's an example for the world, social experiment.

And I just hope other countries will adopt it because we, it, you know, it was spontaneous, but the spontaneity has to be, you know, for long. And, uh, and I think now we need to get professionalized help because it cannot be, uh, you know, on volunteers. There needs to be a system from a government, support system for people who work for like costs. So they of course will get some financial help, and we need to have, you know, experts and managers to kind of make sure that this, what is spontaneously done by citizens of Poland, will actually have a movement which actually has kind of a sustainability and push forward and get people contaminated with this idea of helping and integrating with society. Not just building camps, refugee camps, building ghettos and putting people in, you know, on the side, but strong integration, but, you know, on a small level. It's an experiment.

It's an experiment that is truly working and is showing amazing results. And, you know, if we were to compare what you just said, refugee camps versus welcoming with open arms and creating a sustainable life and future, I think it's really clear which one is dysfunctional which one is extremely functional and welcoming. Joanna, you're just extraordinary.

I'm not extraordinary, I'm just one of the hundreds of thousands of other Polish women and men who are really involved in making this happen. I'm not extraordinary, I'm just the one who has the opportunity to speak, but I speak on behalf of all my comrades, and my comrades who are today at the moment, you know, they're extremely stressed because we have to manage being mothers and wives wives and, and managers and CEOs. And that's why we want to get us, uh, and hope us that you're going to be involved and help us added to understanding programs like me being a host and bring other Ukrainians to your country and assisting our government so they can have professional kind of support and help, uh, providing funds and or helps, uh, with the people here, uh, because we are not We are not one of the richest countries.

We don't have, you know, we Well, it looks like the end of the broadcast. Uh, Joanna seemed to have fallen off. Uh, what an incredible interview. We learned a lot from Joanna today, and we'll place some links in the bottom so you can know how to get involved. Uh, Joanna did call for psychiatrists, coaches, consultants, and also laid down a model model for how we can really bring refugees in, as well as how to bring refugees into our country. It was welcoming, it was caring, it was incredible, and how they're putting up signs in the train stations and streets and saying, 'Come to me, I'll take you in,' and then learning about the Ukrainian culture, cooking their foods, understanding their language. Welcoming them in ways that really care for their psychological well-being. Um, just incredible, just incredible what Joanna is doing. And she's creating this new reskilling program for Ukrainian women to, uh, to get new jobs and to make a new life in Warsaw. This is the example for a humanitarian relief effort that all countries should follow around the world, and Poland is the example. It is the best practice for bringing in refugees. If you want to become involved with this or want to learn more from Joanna, uh, comment here. If you want to let Joanna know anything that you do that you can be of help or any of your expertise can be of help, comment there below and Joanna will get it, and I'm sure she'll comment back. Thanks everybody for joining today. On this LinkedIn Live. Be well, stay safe. The best to you all in Ukraine for a better life and better days.