Published: Less than 20 min ago
Olha Musiienko, 39, fled Kyiv with two children and her mother.
Now she helps Ukrainian refugees in Boden find work – so far there have been 27 jobs.
– We are very worried every day and wish the war would end, says Olha.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Olha was at home in Kyiv with her children and her mother:
– It was panic, we woke up to them bombing us. Then it calmed down. But when bombs started falling near our house again and it started to burn, we just got in the car and drove, says Olha.
After 30 hours of waiting at the border, they entered Poland. A few days later they continued to Sweden, and were placed by the Migration Agency in Boden, where they arrived at the beginning of March.
– We were afraid of the climate, because it was so far north. But when we arrived, we immediately understood that it is very good here, says Olha.
Since Olha is a trained English teacher and used to filling out documents in a structured way, she soon got a job as a labor market consultant at the municipal labor market unit JobbCenter in Boden.
– Her mission is to map the Ukrainian refugees who have come here via the EU’s mass refugee directive and then, in collaboration with the rest of us, match them with suitable work, says Thomas Knutsson, head of JobbCenter.
There are currently around 200 Ukrainians in Boden. Olha and two Ukrainian colleagues at JobbCenter have interviewed 146 Ukrainians and arranged jobs for 27 of them.
– Of course we are very happy when people get jobs. Some now work in preschools, some in hotels, others as cleaners. Many are well educated. One who knows good English teaches mathematics, another who knows both good English and German also works in a school, says Olha.
She is happy that she has a job, and that she doesn’t have to live in war-torn Ukraine:
– We are very happy that my children can go to preschool and school here, while their peers often sit in shelters in Kyiv. My children don’t need to feel any stress.
Do you and your mother expect to return to Ukraine in the future?
– I don’t make any plans. We live day by day, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But we are very grateful that we get to be in Sweden, says Olha Musiienko.