Looking for an opportunity to help?
Britta Schnitzer (@Britta) is hosting two refugees from Ukraine in her garden house. If you feel moved to do so, you may donate to a fund to help them enroll in German business language courses.
Here’s some background from Britta
Olga and Mohsen in front of Britta's garden houseI know that many of you are concerned, shocked and feeling sad about the war going on in Ukraine. And I am sure you all know that many Ukrainians are leaving their country and are now arriving in European cities.
As Achim and I did feel the same we decided to help and are now housing two refugees from Ukraine in our little garden house.
Olga and Mohsen had to leave Kyiv and arrived in Frankfurt after a long and difficult trip.
They do not have to pay anything for the house but, as you can imagine, a lot of things are needed if you only can bring one small trolley with you. Both want to work and earn money to rent a proper flat and begin to settle down permanently in Frankfurt as soon as possible.
We are already in contact with potential employers, but German “business language” will be required and there are only beginner courses offered, which might not be enough to find an appropriate job. I can hear them practicing German in a free-of-charge online course several hours a day as they are very keen to learn German as fast as they can!
As soon as they are registered as residents here in Frankfurt, they do have work permission – appointment for registration will be end of May as the city is overrun with registrations these days.
To speed up the process I am in contact with a language school offering a “German for Business” intensive class that they could start at the end of April, but the course is quite expensive. So, we decided to ask for help in collecting money for the course.
How to help
If you want to help, please donate via PayPal: paypal.me/Help4OlgaMohsen
(As PayPal does not offer a free of charge money pool anymore, I am collecting directly via my private PayPal account).
Please don't feel “forced” to participate in this; I know that many of you already help in other ways or support other important projects! In fact, I know that some other JMPers are also already considering offering housing for Ukrainian refugees as they asked me for information around this!
If you decide to donate: Thanks in advance + I will keep you updated on the progress they make!
Kind regards, Britta
Meet Olga and Mohsen
Olga (35 years old) is a professional translator (Ukrainian, Russian, English, Portuguese and Chinese) and her husband Mohsen (39 years old and originally from Iran) is an IT Network Engineer – they met during holidays in Thailand and say it was “love at first sight,” so they married three years ago and settled down together in Kyiv.
When a rocket hit a shopping center near their flat, they decided to leave Ukraine and managed to get to Frankfurt, finally. The only reason Mohsen could leave Ukraine is that his has no permanent residency permit in Ukraine so far – but it was very difficult to get through the border and they needed two weeks to get to Frankfurt by hitchhiking, walking long distances, trains and buses.
They have experienced shock and fear and gratitude for all the help they received to come here!
They are very “hands-on” and already handle most of the things they must do on their own. They help a lot around the house/garden and cook delicious meals.
"In fact, they do integrate so well that it feels like hosting friends/ family already," says Britta.
@Britta - this is such a beautiful thing that you and Achim are doing! What a great way to help those in need!
Love this extravagant gesture of kindness to share your home and resources, Britta! Well done 
!
@tkeller Thank you so much for your kind words and for your help!
@Britta - you and Achim are wonderful human beings!
What a compassionate and generous thing to do, @Britta. You are an inspiration.
For me, this is the opportunity I was waiting for! Being able to know exactly where my donation goes to gives me a good feeling. BIG thanks to Britta and her family for showing real hospitality. And wishing Olga and Mohsen all the best for their future here in Germany!
Dear colleagues, as promised here is an actual update on progess:
Olga is a very energetic person and by pushing hard every day on Frankfurt registration office they managed to already get registered at Frankfurt this morning.
To be honest I do not have any idea how she did fight her way through Germanys bureaucracy jungle to make this happen? :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Thanks to your generous donations I could also already book the first German language course for Olga and Mohsen today!
They will start on 25th April with Module 1 and I do already have a huge part of the cost covered for Module 2 starting in June also.
When I informed them about this they both had tears in their eyes and asked me to tell you that they are more than happy about the help you provided to them taking the first step into a new live. I can´t count how often they did say “Thank you” and stated that they never could imagine to get so many help from people not even knowing them. I will take a video soon as they want to thank you personally also!
You can´t imagine how grateful Achim and I are that so many people in JMP did help to make this happen. You are amazing!
Thanks again for your donations!
Kind regards, Britta
@Britta I'd like to donate. I'm donating to agencies but would like the opportunity to support people directly. Do you take Venmo?
