A shelter in Ukraine just for mothers

The effects of a war are always there, lurking. Olga Parobeiko, 42, a midwife, appears to her as she talks about how the center where she works, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lviv, assists mothers who are refugees there. She is the specialist and knows how everything works. But as she tells this, her work, she begins to cry. Her daughter has lost her husband to the war and the memory of her twists his throat. Near or far from the front, violence has very long legs. Parobeiko recovers and explains that this shelter has welcomed some 60 mothers since it opened a year ago, most of them coming from Donetsk and Lugansk, eastern provinces in the Russian target. At present, 12 women and 27 minors plus two elderly people live there, in what is known as the Center for Unbreakable Mothers. One rule above all others: the stay of men is prohibited.

The original idea came from the local Lviv authorities and was put into operation with the help of the Ukrainian Red Cross. It is part of an obsession of the municipal government to build an “ecosystem” at the service of those fleeing the bombings and fighting in the east of the country: hospitals, rehabilitation and prosthesis centers, schools, nurseries… and this shelter for pregnant or with small children. All this, connected to each other through public transport. Since February 2022, around six million people have passed through Lviv fleeing the violence. It is estimated that around 150,000 of these displaced persons have remained in the town.

Tanya Kondakova, 39, is one of those who have come to the city to stay, at least for a while. Her story offers very little light to hope. She has three children. The oldest, 10 and 16 years old, and the youngest, only seven months old. “She was born with the new year,” says the woman, a native of Bakhmut. She fled from this terrible point of the current war front along with the children and her mother before the constant hammering of Russian bombs. She first lived in a student residence in Lviv, but in one room there was not enough space for everyone. The children’s father is currently in Germany. “Occasionally he calls, but rarely,” says Kondakova. She doesn’t want to go into more detail.

On paper, the center does not give women carte blanche so that they are left without a date of departure. The rules are clear: the stay can be extended until the minor has reached one year of age. But if circumstances demand it, an exception is made. The residents consulted for this report neither had nor could set a day to pack up and leave. That’s the way Kondakova goes. “I need a conditioned place for my children (just like her, they have a degree of disability)”, she says, “and this is free”. She thought about jumping to Poland or traveling to Sweden, where a sister resides, but she wants to stay in her country.

A child was walking next to one of the two twin houses that make up the center for mothers located in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, on August 2. /OG

Another of the options available to mothers or pregnant women who leave their homes towards the western strip is to reside with their partners, now, in housing units. But it is just what this project wanted to avoid. These prefabricated huts, necessary in an emergency, require that, in order to go to the bathroom, cook or do laundry, for children to play, it is necessary to go outside ―everything is in a different room―, and that, in winter , with temperatures below zero, is not highly recommended.

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Two mirror houses, a forest and a lake

The Center for Unbreakable Mothers wanted to go beyond basic care and create an environment, in the middle of a dense forest about five kilometers from the center of the city, in which these displaced women could focus on their pregnancy, childbirth, in the care of the first months of children. The project was designed and carried out in just three months by the team of local architects Sulyk Architects: they are two mirror houses, identical, facing each other ―with 13 rooms per property and a total capacity to accommodate 112 people―, covered sheet metal on the outside and wood on the inside.

The large windows offer natural light to all floors of the house. Downstairs, the bedrooms, the kitchen and the communal dining room. Upstairs, an open room full of toys and a large screen on which cartoons are tuned. Children go up and down; they go in and out, from the park and towards the lake that gives way to a leafy grove.

It’s time to eat and Olga Kravchenko, 33, a native of Kharkov, is there. She always has that half smile and look in her eyes that makes it seem like she’s up to something, but no. She worked at a milk factory in her hometown, but the building she lived in was hit by missiles launched by Moscow. Even the kitchen of her house suffered damage. 11 months ago, she decided, with her husband and two children (13 and 10 years old), to run away from her. Then another child would arrive, now eight months old. “For the moment we are going to stay here,” says Kravchenko, “we cannot pay rent (around 12,000 grivnas, about 300 euros).” Her husband works in construction in another city and spends the nights there, in a module.

Tanya Kondakova, displaced from Bakhmut, in the center for mothers in the city of Lviv, on August 2. /OG

Her namesake, Olga Shevchenko (needless to say, a common name in Ukraine), also 33, bursts out laughing when asked about the number of children she has. There are four of them (1, 8, 10 and 12 years old). Perhaps more surprising is her status with which she defines herself: “I am a single mother,” says Shevchenko, who left her home in Lisichan, in the Lugansk province, in March 2022. She has no plans to return ; It is territory controlled by Russian troops. She will soon receive a diploma to work as a hairdresser, but with four children, she argues with a smile, she doesn’t find it easy.

Why do you like living here?

―Because it is a residence where I can live a normal life.

-And his sons?

“They would want us to go to an apartment.

As Parobeiko explained after wiping away tears at the beginning, the center’s psychosocial care services, with which the women meet twice a week, also assist them in their search for a future outside of there. But the atmosphere does not accompany. “Here they have their private space,” explains the specialist, “without stress, in a circle of mutual support in which they understand each other very well.”

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