‘As a Ukrainian refugee, the support from the UK has been mind-blowing'

A Ukrainian refugee who fled to the UK shortly after the outbreak of the Ukraine war says she now feels like she has more to lose leaving the UK than she does to gain from going home.

Mariia, who worked at a British international school in Kyiv, was living in the capital the day Russia invaded Ukraine, and has spent the last three years in the UK living in London and working as a teaching assistant, then as an ESL teacher.

Initially, fleeing the capital and moving back in with her parents in her hometown in the south west of the country, the trained translator was made redundant shortly after war broke out, and fled to the UK as the conflict intensified.

As the conflict rumbles on, Mariia’s six-month stay in the UK has turned into three years.

"At first when I came here, of course, it seemed like it was just six months. But now it’s almost been three years. I'm scared to admit that but that at this point. I have more to lose here than I have left there, especially at this point in my life. I am 27. My career is growing. My life is forming," she told Yahoo News.

"Time goes by and people, you know, people don't just sit and wait for the war to be over. Everyone is working and putting a lot of resources, personal resources, into shaping their lives to the best of their ability, me included."

'I spent two days travelling to the UK'

The 27-year-old lives in Islington in London with her second host family, working as an English teacher for other displaced Ukrainians after she was hired by a social enterprise named Beam.

With few prospects, and the war only intensifying, Mariia signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, finding a host to look after her in Islington, London for six months.

The Homes for Ukraine scheme was a government-led initiative that allowed UK residents to sponsor Ukrainian refugees and their families to live in the UK from a month after the war began in March 2022.

As of December 2024, the Homes for Ukraine scheme had received 352,000 applications and issued 267,200 visas, according to government figures.

Mariia remembers the "nightmare journey" fleeing Ukraine in May 2022, recalling the packed Polish border and crowds of people "getting out or coming back."

"A lot of people were coming back from abroad to serve in the army," she told Yahoo News.

"It took about 20 hours overall on a coach to get to Krakow in Poland, then a flight from Krakow to London, compared to hopping on a flight for a couple of hours just weeks before.

"I live close to the border in Poland. People from other parts of the country have to spend three days at least to get anywhere in Europe," she added.

At large, Mariia said the support British people have shown displaced Ukrainians has been "mind-blowing".

"The way this programme has worked and the way this country has supported Ukrainians is just hard to even get your head around," she said.

"The thousands of British people who opened their doors, their homes for absolute strangers, it's mind blowing, really. So many people were happy to host whole families, animals, everything," she added.

"I love London. I love how accepting it is and how genuinely it's easy to fit in. It's the whole world in one city.

"I feel very grateful for the fact that I always felt very welcomed from day one by everybody and was able to meet some really wonderful people," she added.

Mariia said she sees herself as "one of the lucky ones", in the "heartbreaking" war.

Tens of thousands of lives — at least — have been lost in the conflict, with official figures challenging to verify.

"Survivor's guilt, I can understand, it’s creeping in. I can never understand 100% what it’s like to be there," she told Yahoo News.

"I receive texts from my friends telling me how they've been woken up in the middle of the night by a bomb exploding nearby. It's really scary," she added.

Hired to help other Ukrainians

To secure help finding a job, Mariia approached Beam after being referred by the local council. Instead, the charity spotted her skills as an interpreter, and hired her to help other Ukrainians.

"A couple of days after my first video call, the careers advisor got back to me saying that there's a job opening at Beam for an ESL teacher, English to speakers of other languages.

"He said that I was perfectly qualified for it, and encouraged me to apply.

"After three rounds of interviews, I got the job. At that time, my careers advisor had only been working at Beam for three months, just a couple of months. He hadn't passed his probation and I became his first successful job placement," she added.

Beam has recently marked the milestone of helping 1000 Londoners out of homelessness — and assisting 5000 with accommodation and employment opportunities in total since it was founded seven years ago.

Last year, homelessness in London was the highest since records began in 2009. As of October 2024, more than 183,000 people were homeless and in temporary accommodation, including 90,000 children.

In partnership with more than 70 local councils, Beam’s team of more than 100 frontline caseworkers deliver the service to people in need.

More than a third of London local authorities commission Beam to support residents. As well as supporting homeless people and unemployed people, Beam also works with refugees like Mariia and prison leavers to help them regain stability in their lives.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was one of the earliest funders of Beam. He said he is "determined to end rough sleeping" in London by 2030.

Khan said: “I’m proud to have been one of the earliest funders of Beam, watching it grow from two employees into an award-winning social enterprise that has supported a thousand Londoners out of homelessness.

“I’m determined to end rough sleeping in the capital by 2030. It’s a huge and complex challenge so we must work in partnership to build a better, fairer, more prosperous London for everyone.”