A brand new Prague-based web radio station has began to broadcast information, data and music tailor-made to the day-to-day considerations 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 inexperienced persons to supply the refugees with what they should know to settle as easily as doable in a brand new nation.
The workers of 10 combines individuals who have fled Ukraine in latest weeks with those that have been residing overseas for years. Irrespective of who they’re, their widespread objective is to assist fellow Ukrainians and their homeland dealing with the brutal Russian invasion.
Natalia Churikova, an skilled journalist with Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty stated she could not say no to a proposal to turn out to be the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief.
“It was for my folks, for individuals who actually wanted assist, who actually wanted assist, one thing that will assist them begin a brand new stay or restart their lives right here after they’ve lived by very unhealthy issues attempting to flee from Ukraine,” Churikova stated.
Staffer Sofia Tatomyr is a type of who left to flee the warfare. 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 warfare has simply begun.”
Her dad and mom and older brother opted to remain house, however they needed her to hitch her aunt in Prague.
“It occurred rapidly,” she stated. She boarded a bus alone in Cherniutsi and arrived 28 hours later within the Czech capital, a metropolis she’d by no means visited.
“After I was already overseas, I keep in mind the second that I used to be crying and I used to be attempting to purchase a ticket and I could not spell what ticket I want. It was actually tough,” she stated.
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 stated she wanted “a while to grasp that not all people could be on the frontline on the warfare and all people has to do what she or he can do one of the best.”
“So that is how I am cheering myself up that I am doing my career, that I am doing what I can do one of the best, and that is one of the simplest ways I might help our folks, I might help Ukraine. That is how I am interested by it,“ she stated.
Secure in Prague, she was nonetheless attempting to come back to phrases with the invasion of her homeland.
“It is horrible,” she stated. “I can not nonetheless discover any logical rationalization for what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Within the twenty first century, a warfare? Why? We have been a peaceable nation residing simply our lives.”
One other announcer, Marharyta Golobrodska, was working as a copywriter for a software program firm when she acquired a name from Churikova, whom she knew from an internship at Radio Free Europe.
“I used to think about those that stand up early to be able to work from 6am loopy, however that is what I do now and I completely take pleasure in it,” Golobrodska stated. “That is what I at all times needed to do, to be useful for my nation, although I stay so distant.”
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 data for refugees each quarter-hour. It consists of particulars about the place they will get the paperwork they want from native authorities, learn how to get a job or medical therapy, or learn how to discover a place for youngsters at colleges. Kids 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 fulfill her mom and 9-year-old sister and drive them to security. In Prague, she received them concerned in her broadcast.
“My mum, for instance, informed me she’d like to listen to what she’s not speculated to do right here. For instance, that she will’t park the automotive wherever she needs to love in Ukraine,” she stated.
Bohemia Media, which operates a number of radio stations within the Czech Republic, got here up with the thought 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, stated the plan is for the station to stay on air so long as it is wanted. The important thing activity for now could be to let know as many potential listeners as doable about its existence.
One in all them is Sophia Medvedeva. The 23-year outdated internet designer could not maintain again tears as she talked concerning the latest six-day drive along with her mom and youthful brother from Mykolaiv to Krakow, Poland.
However in Prague, she joined her fiancé and Radio Ukraine helped her adapt to a brand new life. “I am so amazed concerning the likelihood to hearken to Ukrainian music once I’m not in my homeland. I really feel that I am not alone,” she stated. Her solely suggestion for it’s to ask a psychologist to “advise the Ukrainian refugees about learn how to battle the survivor syndrome and learn how to battle despair.”
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