Personal assistant

Call, sms or email Nataliia Lebedeva,

Call: 0046739765306

[email protected]

She will guide you as a refugee and explain what you might find difficult in your search for accommodation or a volunteer. She can also help hosts with translation and contact with a refugee family. A helpful hand.

Nataliia is a Ukrainian refugee herself with her two children and they have got accommodation through Swedes for Ukraine.

Nataliia’s story

I want to tell my story about how I found a place to live in Sweden. I hope it will be useful for both Ukrainians looking for shelter and Swedes who are ready to provide such shelter. For Ukrainians, who have arrived in other countries, finding a place to stay is the first and most important task. For me, the project “Swedes for Ukraine” became the solution to that task.

I left Ukraine with my children in early March. The decision to leave was not easy. But fear for the lives and safety of my children prevailed. We travelled through Kyiv, Lviv, Boryslav and finally a 15-hour walk through Krakivets to Poland. When I stood outdoor at night among thousands of other refugees and watched the snow falling from the sky, I couldn’t help but think that someone had invented all this just to hurt us. At that time, I didn’t know what would happen next in Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel, Mariupol. My story sounds like a fairy tale in comparison to all the horror that russian soldiers brought to my country later on.

Our journey continued to polish Wroclaw and Warsaw, a long bus ride through Poland, Germany, Denmark and finally the bridge to Sweden and Malmö. The kindness of the people in all the countries we passed was striking – it was a contrast too sharp compared to the rage that the russians poured out on us. I asked myself, “Why are distant Europeans so kind to us, and the russians hate us so much? Why is there so much good here and so much evil coming from there?”

For a while, I was sheltered in my friend’s house. But after a while, I had to look for a new place to stay. That’s when I found Swedes for Ukraine. A website where Swedes post information about their available accommodation and Ukrainians can find it. It all sounds too simple and good to be true, so I even doubted it was a real project and not some scam. But I decided to take a chance and I do not regret it. My experience is a confirmation of the safety and veracity of this project.

Today I live in a wonderful house, which I found through Swedes for Ukraine. I’m very grateful to the people working with the project, and to the Swedish families, for opening the doors of their homes and their hearts to Ukrainians.

I hope that my story will be able to help other Ukrainians to find a place to live here in Sweden. And I want all those people who can and want to help, to be able to connect and get in touch with us who really need this help, already today.