Vlad and Nataliia

Vlad, Natallia and their 6-year-old daughter Margo fled Kyiv after the war broke out last year. Searching for a route to reach the UK, they found out about Positive Action in Housing. We put them in contact with a host family through Room for Refugees. Rachel and Sam, with their three children, agreed to be the Abramovs’ sponsor family.

The Abramovs drove for 12 hours to the border. Vlad is a Russian national, and Natallia is Ukrainian. Although this is very common, they were forced to wait in limbo for weeks for Vlad’s visa to be approved. Their money was dwindling, and Positive Action in Housing provided a crisis grant from its Emergency Relief Fund. After we highlighted their case with the press, the family were able to travel to stay with their host family and settled in. Positive Action in Housing’s resettlement team supported Vlad into work as a chef.

After a year, they secured social housing, and moved into their own home, and became more comfortable with speaking English. Since arriving in Glasgow, they have met other families, and Margo enjoys her school and extracurricular activities in dance and gymnastics.

My wife was worried about the weather, but even when it’s rainy, it’s nice. We travelled a lot, we have been to Skye and the Highlands. We are planning to travel more to discover Scotland. There are many parks, and our daughter goes to ballet and gymnastics. We feel at home here. Positive Action was the first to reply, late at night, to our cry for help. Before this, we had sent dozens of emails to different charity organisations, your team supported us, day and night. We are happy, that of all the places in the world, we came to Scotland.