The JCW offers around 30 Ukrainian children and young people a sporting home
Ukrainian children and young people together with JCW members before a joint training session.
(Photo: JCW)
WIESBADEN – It is first and foremost the great suffering of the refugees to have to turn their backs on their wartime homeland. Countless personal fates in this incomprehensible misfortune are behind it. On the other hand, the civil society that helps those in Germany is something beautiful in this misery.
“We want to deal with the situation as best we can. When the children are on the mat, they can switch off a little,” says Robertson Linsner about the 30 or so Ukrainian children and young people from a judo boarding school who are currently training at JC Wiesbaden. In March, the judo club spontaneously decided to take in two larger groups of minors from Zaporizhia in the south of the war-torn country (as previously reported). The connection to the Ukrainian judo coach Kyrill Vertynskyi through former JCW Bundesliga fighter Maryna Cherniak made it possible. After days of bus travel with an involuntary Corona stopover in Vienna, the 11 to 17-year-olds have been in Wiesbaden for a few weeks. The second, smaller Sprinter bus with a total of 13 children and two adults, including former Olympic participant Stanislav Bondarenko, was on the road for three days with five seats. The children share accommodation at Evim and Johannesstift. At JCW you can practice your favorite sport almost every day. “They’re doing badly. Some are still in school trip mode, others are of course worried and thinking about how things will continue,” Linsner observes with the kids. The group was present at the recent refugee fair in the slaughterhouse. Some of the parents who initially stayed in the Ukraine are now in Poland and the Czech Republic and have brought their children there.
German lessons are offered regularly
However, it is quite possible that some of the children will remain in Germany permanently. “They don’t go to school yet. A colleague from the club and a mother who works as a teacher in an intensive class offer them German lessons on a regular basis,” Linsner says, pleased that there are so many helping hands at the JCW. The “simple member” Linsner, who works for the Red Cross Volunta in his professional life, was practically in the right place at the right time, as he says, and simply pitched in and organized.
“But I didn’t know beforehand how to deal with unaccompanied minors. But we also got great help and support from the city and all of its offices,” the judoka praises the cooperation.
