Many stories have been told in recent months of Ukrainian refugees who arrived in all parts of Spain and Europe fleeing the war in their country. Lives shattered by the Russian invasion, overwhelming testimonies and people who have left their families, their homes and their jobs to save their lives. But Before Putin decided to start the war, there were already Ukrainians living in Vigo and the surrounding municipalities that arrived for different reasons: looking for a better future, for love or simply because they wanted a change of direction.
It is the case of Daria Zakharova, a 27-year-old Ukrainian woman who has been living in Cangas for a year and a half. A native of the city of Odessa, where she graduated in Medicine, she worked as an anesthetist in the ICU of a hospital in Ukraine, but was also a professional table tennis player, so she decided to embark on a sports adventure in Cangas. The problem was when tried to validate her Medicine degree to be able to work as a doctor here in Galicia. He came face to face with the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Education, the administration in charge of homologating degrees obtained in other countries. “I have had interviews to work in different hospitals in the area, but without the title it is impossible. The homologation should be much faster”Daria complained.
To survive, at the moment he is giving classes to children in different table tennis clubs. What’s more, during this summer she is working as a teacher of this sport in a camp. The problem: she needs to find a stable job as soon as possible because his parents did recently arrive as refugees from Ukraine because of the war, they live with her and therefore she needs a higher income to be able to support her family.
“As long as they don’t recognize my medical degree and I can’t work as an anesthetist, which is my profession, I’m looking for any kind of job. I can work as a waitress, in hotels… I have to pay for the flat we live in and I need the money”, explains this young woman. Daria has also already obtained the B2 Spanish certificate to make it easier for her to enter the labor market.. She manages to maintain a fluid conversation without any problem in Spanish after living in the country for more than a year, being in daily contact with people who speak Spanish and who have helped her make progress in learning and mastering the language.
“My parents came as refugees, have applied for the Risga but are still waiting for acceptance. Both of them would like to go back to Ukraine, my mother had a business in Odessa and she had to leave it because of the war. But they know that it is difficult to be able to return, ”she says. And it is that, despite the fact that in recent days the media focus has moved away to other points, the truth is that Russia continues with its offensive in Ukraine and the population continues to struggle to survive the bombs, so neither Daria nor her Parents see it as viable to return to their native country at least until the situation returns to normal, and it does not seem that they will do so in the short or medium term.
At the moment, Daria continues to give table tennis classes, waiting for an opportunity to arise. and, especially, that the endless bureaucratic process to have his medical studies approved come to an end. And he appeals to the companies that need an employee in the city of Olívica or in nearby towns to be able to get ahead while he cannot practice as a doctor.
Vigo and the surrounding municipalities have been involved since the beginning of the war in Ukraine with the refugees that were arriving in this area. In Nigrán, for example, to make integration easier for them, the City Council wanted to offer them a basic Spanish course to make your day-to-day easier. There are 24 hours of classes at the center for the elderly in A Ramallosa, taught by Laura Rodríguez Salgado, the doctor in Applied Linguistics and master’s degree in teaching staff that the Council has hired. The teacher has found a group with few notions of Spanish, so she has started with basic vocabulary such as greetings, numbers, parts of the body… A minimum that allows them to communicate with the environment.
The profile of the students is that of young women with dependent children who have had to leave their classmates there to fight in the contest. There is also a grandmother with her daughter and her granddaughter and a couple. The Vigo food bank, for example, has also turned its attention to Ukrainian refugees by providing them with food.
In Galicia, the main association that manages the arrival of Ukrainian refugees is Accem. According to its latest data, in collaboration with all the municipalities, it has processed the reception in different municipalities of the community for some 155 people from Ukraine, according to the latest data they have provided.
