New radio station helps Ukrainian refugees adapt in Prague

A brand new Prague-based web radio station has began to broadcast information, info 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 towards Ukraine.

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

🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to entry the most effective Election reporting and evaluation 🗞️

The workers of 10 combines individuals who have fled Ukraine in latest weeks with those that have been residing overseas for years. No matter who they’re, their frequent purpose is to assist fellow Ukrainians and their homeland going through the brutal Russian invasion.

Natalia Churikova, an skilled journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty mentioned she couldn’t say no to a suggestion to turn into the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief.

“It was for my people, for people who really needed help, who really needed support, something that would help them start a new live or restart their lives here after they have lived through very bad things trying to escape from Ukraine,” Churikova mentioned.

Staffer Sofia Tatomyr is a kind of who left to flee the conflict.

The 22-year-old from the western city of Kalush was planning to maneuver to a different metropolis in Ukraine when a buddy referred to as one morning: “Sofia, the war has just begun.”

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

“It happened all of a sudden,” she mentioned. She boarded a bus alone in Cherniutsi and arrived 28 hours later within the Czech capital, a metropolis she’d by no means visited.

“When I was already abroad, I remember the moment that I was crying and I was trying to buy a ticket and I couldn’t spell what ticket I need. It was really difficult,” she mentioned.

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 mentioned she wanted “some time to understand that not everybody can be at the frontline at the war and everybody has to do what he or she can do the best.”

“So this is how I’m cheering myself up that I’m doing my profession, that I’m doing what I can do the best, and this is the best way I can help our people, I can help Ukraine. This is how I’m thinking about it,” she mentioned.

Safe in Prague, she was nonetheless attempting to return to phrases with the invasion of her homeland.

“It’s horrible,” she mentioned. “I can’t nonetheless discover any logical clarification for what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. In the twenty first century, a conflict? Why? We have been a peaceable nation residing simply our lives.

Another 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 consider those who get up early to be ready to work from 6 am crazy, but that’s what I do now and I thoroughly enjoy it,” Golobrodska mentioned. “That’s what I always wanted to do, to be helpful for my country, even though I live so far away.”

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 info for refugees each quarter-hour.

It consists of particulars about the place they will get the paperwork they want from native authorities, how you can get a job or medical therapy, or how you can discover a place for youngsters at faculties. Children can hearken 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 satisfy her mom and 9-year-old sister and drive them to security. In Prague, she acquired them concerned in her broadcast.

“My mum, for example, told me she’d like to hear what she’s not supposed to do here. For example, that she can’t park the car anywhere she wants to like in Ukraine,” she mentioned.

Bohemia Media, which operates a number of radio stations within the Czech Republic, got here up with the concept to launch the station. It supplied a studio and its folks 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, mentioned the plan is for the station to stay on air so long as it’s wanted. The key job for now’s to let know as many potential listeners as potential about its existence.

One of them is Sophia Medvedeva. The 23-year outdated net designer couldn’t maintain again tears as she talked concerning the latest six-day drive along with her mom and youthful brother from Mykolaiv to Krakow, Poland.

But in Prague, she joined her fiance and Radio Ukraine helped her adapt to a brand new life.

“I’m so amazed about the chance to listen to Ukrainian music when I’m not in my homeland. I feel that I’m not alone,” she mentioned. Her solely suggestion for it’s to ask a psychologist to “advise the Ukrainian refugees about how you can struggle the survivor syndrome and how you can struggle despair.