Today Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day.
As the war goes on, it is important for the EU cities and regions to show their support.
And that's what the city of Brussels does!
We met Philippe Close, mayor of the city of Brussels, to talk about his hard work to #HelpUkraine.
And here's what he told us.
I always say that it doesn't matter where you come from. What matters is what we can do together.
People here, in Brussels, are truly concerned by Ukrainian war.
What we always try to do is to link people together. You don't always have the same experience and knowledge, and it's more efficient to connect people on the local level so they can share this experience and knowledge with each other.
If you want to help, you can always find your own way to do something. If you have a competence in something, use it.
The first city we are working with is Kyiv. My first contact with Vitaliy Klitschko was in March/April 2022. It happened because the city of Brussels organized the welcoming of refugees at Brussels Expo.
The Ukrainian Embassy contacted us and said that we are already helping a lot, so it would be a good idea to do something between the two capitals.
I said:
– Yes, let's do it!
So we organized a first video conference together. And Vitaliy told me that it's very important that I come to Kyiv physically to see the situation with my own eyes.
And my answer was:
– Yes, I want to come! But I don't want to come with empty hands. I need to come with something. It's not tourism for me to go to Kyiv, I want to be useful. Let me check if I can bring something.
And we've decided to work first of all with medical equipment. So we started this cooperation and first time we came with two ambulances and medical personnel who would work inside the hospital and could identify needs. After they came back, we worked on providing the next load of material they actually needed.
We then went to Kyiv and discussed with the municipality what is working or not at the Hospital number 6 and with another hospital that specializes in the rehabilitation of the injured soldiers who come from the frontline. And then we decided to focus first of on Kyiv, but now we work closely with Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Mariupol City that is currently based in Dnipro.
In Dnirpo we work with Mechnikov hospital that is the biggest hospital treating patients arriving from the frontline. We provide help to hospital in Zaporizhia which receives huge load of patients from the frontline after passing through medical stabilisation points.
So the wounded soldiers first come there. We provide some help there before they are moved to Kyiv or other cities where they are going through the second stage of recovery.
We have a very good relationship.
We are also very much involved in psychological help. We know there is a big problem with women raped by Russian soldiers. There are so many affected women, it is horrible. So we've decided to organize meeting with psychologists and nurses from Kyiv and from Brussels. So they can exchange on best practices for providing both physical and mental cure for women on this specific problem.
Another example for Brussels is culture. There is a museum in Kyiv showing culture of Ukraine and preserving Ukrainian folk art, Honchar Museum. And we know that it's very important because Russians want to prove that Ukrainian people don’t exist as a nation and that therefore there is no Ukrainian culture. That they are Russians. And during the war preserving the identity and culture is very important.
We went to a museum and we saw that they have to keep all pieces of art underground to protect from possible Russian rocket attack. Underground caves are very humid. And to preserve these pieces of art we need to do something. So we've decided that we need to provide a special help as climate control system regulating the temperature and humidity.
So we are trying to save these paintings so after the war will end they can be exposed again. So it's not in the shelter or the basement, but we are saving the culture.
Why I am so engaged for communication with Kyiv? Because we fight for the same values. And when you fight for the same values, it's important that cities support each other.
I always say to my people:
– You know, Kyiv is not far. For my children "East and West Europe" does not exist. They were born in an united Europe. The next generations think different.
I also have the experience with the school integration of Ukrainian refugees. Ukrainian kids are very-very hard working. They want to succeed. But, of course, for them it is very hard. They learn a new language from scratch. And we all know that French or Dutch are very difficult. But they are ready to learn.
Brussels is a cosmopolitan city with more than 184 nationalities. Second in the world. If you come from a foreign country – for us it doesn’t matter. The most important thing is to find a balance. Because, of course, we need to do more for them to integrate to our society, but maybe they will never come back home after the war. Or we have to listen to the Ukrainian authorities who are afraid that the large part of the refugees will never come back to Ukraine. And these are people who are important for Ukraine to rebuild the country. We will see…
Ukraine has so many things to give to the European Union. I always say that. At the end of the war – and I hope it will happen very soon – there will be a lot of people from all over Europe to actually live in Ukraine and rebuild Ukraine. There are so many economic opportunities.
I already saw and heard so many people are ready to invest. They know it's a chance. You'll see, there will be so many people moving to Ukraine.
The European Union and a lot of private companies are ready to invest. And Ukrainian people deserve to have a modern country with modern infrastructure.
Belgians are showing solidarity. And they are ready to do more. And Brussels people are very open.
It is also remarkable that at the beginning of the full-scale invasion we thought that we need to build a lot of special places for the refugees, but in fact we ended up with the largest part of Ukrainian refugees living with Belgians, who just opened their doors. These where not the authorities who decided that. To give an apartment, to give a room, to give a place to sleep. These were people who decided that. And this is remarkable.
Image made by the PES Group
