My name is Anastasiya, I am from Ukraine, Kyiv. Before the start of the war, I successfully worked in a real estate company and was a successful agent.
On February 24th 2022 at 4.00am rockets flew towards Kyiv, I decided to leave the city, since I had responsibility for the life of my son. We drove by car to Western Ukraine, the journey took a whole week. The traffic was simply terrible, sometimes we stood in place for ten hours, gas at the gas stations was running out, the queues to park the car were a hundred in a line. Sometimes I had to sleep in the car, because a curfew was announced and it was forbidden to drive into the city after 9.00pm. If you didn’t have time to get to a city, you had to sleep in the car. It was very scary; you could hear sirens and rocket explosions, children were crying, adults were in panic, nobody knew what to do.
When we reached Western Ukraine, we lived there for almost three more months in the hope that the war would end. But this has not happened to this day. I decided to leave the country when rockets began to be launched into Western Ukraine. We went to visit my mother in Italy, where we lived for a year and a half. I worked there as a sous chef in a restaurant and also as a waiter. However, the town is very small and people there don't speak English. I decided that I needed to move on for the sake of my son’s future as the question of his education had become very pressing. I decided to go to England, since there is a good education system here.
I found a sponsor in England and on September 15th we came here. However, as soon as we arrived my sponsor started to abuse me and made it unsafe and impossible for us to stay in her house. Thus we became homeless. I was connected to the Beam programme and now I am on my way to find a job.
At the moment I am looking for a job as a part- time waitress, I hope this job will help me to learn English better. Then in the future I would like to work in real estate again. I dream that my son will receive a higher education here and will do everything in my power for this. I will be grateful to everyone who makes some contribution to the realisation of my dream. Our children are our future and they deserve the best.