The situation of the refugees from Kharkiv and their future were discussed by (from left): Winfried Hülsbusch from the management of the Caritas Children’s and Youth Home, Sarah Lahrkamp, member of the Bundestag, and Raimund Gausmann, head of the school and social department. Photo: Gerd Cosse
Children from the soccer boarding school in Kharkiv found support at Eintracht Rheine and the Caritas children’s home
It’s a lively group at lunch. Boys between the ages of 12 and 15 are “hitting the ground running”. For they have just been playing soccer intensively. Among them is Sarah Lahrkamp, member of the German Bundestag and children’s representative of her SPD parliamentary group. The atmosphere is relaxed, there is a lot of laughter and joking.
But appearances are deceptive: the 16 children, seven mothers and two four-year-olds have made a dangerous journey: they fled from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, a city of over a million people that has since been almost completely destroyed by the Russians.
In Kharkiv, there is a soccer boarding school where these children have been able to lead a carefree life until now. Among them was Stepan Korytnyk. However, the Korytnyk family and their three children fled the country shortly before the start of the war and landed in Rheine in a roundabout way. Father Serhiy was a successful coach of a second-division soccer team in Ukraine, so it was only natural that Korytnyk quickly made contact with FC Eintracht Rheine.
Through Sergej Korytnyk, Jörn Eversmann and Markus Wersching of Eintracht received a call for help from Ukraine. “We then made the decision to help the people and bring them to safety in Germany,” explains Eversmann.
To the Caritas children and youth home was spontaneously built and also the twinning association was asked for support. Last Wednesday, four Bullys with drivers from the FCE and Caritas set off in the direction of the Polish-Ukrainian border. Here the mothers and children were picked up and arrived in the night to Friday at 4.30 o’clock at the children and youth home at the Unlandstraße. The transport costs were shared by FC Eintracht Rheine, the Caritas children’s home and the twinning association.
As Winfried Hülsbusch from the management of the Caritas children’s home explained, the 25 people were accommodated in four house communities. Mothers are also accommodated in each house community, so that the children have their immediate contact person. The specialists of the Caritas Association were also involved, as were those of the city of Rheine, whose head of the school and social affairs department, Raimund Gausmann, also visited the children’s home to find out about this unusual relief action. He praised the joint commitment of FC Eintracht Rheine, the Caritas children’s and youth home and the partnership association.
“Actually, we should not have had to take in these people here in Rheine, because our admission quota is already at 140 percent,” said Gausmann. Other municipalities and cities in the district would be there at about 40 percent, he distributed a small side blow to other communities. However, this is a special case. It does not concern individuals, but a group which one did not want to break apart. Therefore also the city Rheine assured its full support. Although there were problems regarding the financing of the accommodation, which were not known so far. The “unaccompanied children” had been taken “into care” by the city. For the other children and their mothers, a longer-term solution is currently being sought. It was also necessary to consider in which schools and school types the children would be placed after the vacations. Here, the status and learning level of each individual child must first be worked out, he said.
Such accommodation, financing and schooling problems then also took up a lot of space in the discussion with Sarah Lahrkamp, member of the Bundestag. All participants agreed that the municipalities must also receive better support from the federal government in taking in refugees. Also in the longer term, according to Gausmann: “We always have to just react and can’t reliably plan.”
The children, however, got nothing more out of these problems. They were back on the road to the Delsen, where many soccer programs await the kickers every day.
“I saw satisfied and happy children today,” the congresswoman said. “I was surprised how open and unbiased they talked to me”. She said it’s nice that the kids can play soccer here in Rheine in peace, “without the constant fear that something bad will happen!”
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FC Eintracht Rheine, the Caritas Children’s and Youth Home and the Sister Cities Association would like to continue supporting the refugees from the war zone. In order to continue to be able to help, monetary donations are requested to the account: IBAN DE 65 4035 0005 0000 0642 53 under the keyword “Help for Ukraine” at the Stadtsparkasse Rheine.
The destroyed soccer boarding school of FC Metalist Kharkiv (Photos: private)
