Web Radio Station Helps Ukrainian Refugees Adapt in Prague

A brand new Prague-based web radio station has began to broadcast information, data and music tailor-made to the day-to-day issues of some 300,000 refugees who’ve arrived within the Czech Republic since Russia launched its army assault in opposition to Ukraine.

In a studio on the coronary heart of the Czech capital, radio veterans work along with absolute newcomers to supply the refugees with what they should know to settle as easily as potential in a brand new nation.

The employees of 10 combines individuals who have fled Ukraine in latest weeks with those that have been dwelling overseas for years. Irrespective of who they’re, their frequent aim is to assist fellow Ukrainians and their homeland dealing with the brutal Russian invasion.

Natalia Churikova, an skilled journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty stated she could not say no to a proposal to turn into the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief.

“It was for my individuals, for individuals who actually wanted assist, who actually wanted help, one thing that may assist them begin a brand new dwell or restart their lives right here after they’ve lived by very dangerous issues making an attempt to flee from Ukraine,” Churikova stated.

Staffer Sofia Tatomyr is a type of who left to flee the struggle. The 22-year-old from the western city of Kalush was planning to maneuver to a different metropolis in Ukraine when a pal referred to as one morning: “Sofia, the struggle has simply begun.”

Her dad and mom and older brother opted to remain house, however they wished her to affix her aunt in Prague.

“It occurred impulsively,” she stated. She boarded a bus alone in Cherniutsi and arrived 28 hours later within the Czech capital, a metropolis she’d by no means visited.

“After I was already overseas, I bear in mind the second that I used to be crying and I used to be making an attempt to purchase a ticket and I could not spell what ticket I want. It was actually tough,” she stated.

Tatomyr labored as graphic designer and singer in Ukraine after getting a level as a writer and media editor. Radio broadcasting was a part of her programs on the college. To her shock, her aunt’s brother discovered an announcement about jobs for a brand new Ukrainian radio station.

She stated she wanted “a while to grasp that not everyone could be on the frontline on the struggle and everyone has to do what she or he can do the perfect.”

“So that is how I am cheering myself up that I am doing my occupation, that I am doing what I can do the perfect, and that is the easiest way I may help our individuals, I may help Ukraine. That is how I am eager about it,“ she stated.

Protected in Prague, she was nonetheless making an attempt to come back to phrases with the invasion of her homeland.

“It is horrible,” she stated. “I am unable to nonetheless discover any logical rationalization for what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Within the twenty first century, a struggle? Why? We have been a peaceable nation dwelling simply our lives.”

One other announcer, Marharyta Golobrodska, was working as a copywriter for a software program firm when she obtained a name from Churikova, whom she knew from an internship at Radio Free Europe.

“I used to think about those that rise up early to be able to work from 6am loopy, however that is what I do now and I completely take pleasure in it,” Golobrodska stated. “That is what I at all times wished to do, to be useful for my nation, despite the fact that I dwell so far-off.”

For 12 hours every weekday — and 11 hours on weekends — Radio Ukraine performs Ukrainian and western music whereas presenting information of Ukraine and the Czech Republic along with data for refugees each quarter-hour. It consists of particulars about the place they’ll get the paperwork they want from native authorities, learn how to get a job or medical remedy, or learn how to discover a place for youngsters at colleges. Kids can take heed to Ukrainian fairy tales.

A local of the southern metropolis of Mykolaiv, Golobrodska has lived within the Czech Republic for eight-and-a-half years. After the invasion, she travelled to western Ukraine to fulfill her mom and 9-year-old sister and drive them to security. In Prague, she obtained them concerned in her broadcast.

“My mum, for instance, instructed me she’d like to listen to what she’s not alleged to do right here. For instance, that she will be able to’t park the automotive wherever she needs to love in Ukraine,” she stated.

Bohemia Media, which operates a number of radio stations within the Czech Republic, got here up with the thought to launch the station. It offered a studio and its individuals cooperated with the Ukrainian embassy, the native Ukrainian neighborhood and others to make it actuality in three weeks. It additionally covers the salaries.

Lukas Nadvornik, the proprietor of the Mediapark, an organization that represents Bohemia Media, stated the plan is for the station to stay on air so long as it is wanted. The important thing process for now’s to let know as many potential listeners as potential about its existence.

Certainly one of them is Sophia Medvedeva. The 23-year previous internet designer could not maintain again tears as she talked concerning the latest six-day drive together with her mom and youthful brother from Mykolaiv to Krakow, Poland.

However in Prague, she joined her fiancé and Radio Ukraine helped her adapt to a brand new life. “I am so amazed concerning the likelihood to take heed to Ukrainian music once I’m not in my homeland. I really feel that I am not alone,” she stated. Her solely advice for it’s to ask a psychologist to “advise the Ukrainian refugees about learn how to combat the survivor syndrome and learn how to combat melancholy.”

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