Palacký University is organising and coordinating aid and support for students and employees from Ukraine who are finding themselves in difficult existential situations due to the war. At the same time, UP is working with the Regional Assistance Centre to Aid Ukraine. Here, we bring you up-to-date information on the ongoing situation. The list is not complete; activities are increasing daily.
– The Faculty of Law is offering legal aid to refugees from Ukraine via an online legal advice centre for them. Those interested can send their queries to a special e-mail address: legal.help@upol.cz. Faculty of Law student volunteers will offer free advice and help. More details are available here.
– The Department of Foreign Languages at the UP Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry (FMD) is offering Czech for Foreigners courses with a focus on healthcare through University Hospital Olomouc and Szergej Cápec of the FMD. The courses are led by Dagmar Hrabalová and Lenka Podhorná, who teach Czech to medical students in the English-language study programmes. The goal is to help Ukrainian refugees who are healthcare workers to obtain not only general competency in Czech, but also specialised proficiency in order to integrate them more quickly into jobs in the healthcare profession. The courses are free of charge.
– At UP there are currently seven female students on three-month Erasmus+ practical internships, working for example in the AFO organisational team, at the Faculty of Arts, at the Archdiocesan Caritas Olomouc, and the firm Toma Olomouc.
– Children from Ukraine can give form to their feelings in the Drawing Notebook (Pokreslený sešit), which has been launched by the Faculty of Education. It is available in both Czech and Ukrainian versions online, and is being prepared for book publication. Already it is being used by children in integration groups at nursery and primary schools. More information is available here.
– People have who fled the war in Ukraine are starting to learn Czech at the Faculty of Arts. The first round of the qualifications course was attended by fifteen people. The lessons are taking place in cooperation with the Olomouc Labour Office and are aimed at the job market. We have written about this in more detail here.
– Ukrainian refugees attending middle school are improving their English at the Faculty of Arts, where an English conversation course is aimed at young Ukrainians aged 15 to 18 with skill levels from A2 to B1. Those interested can join the free course at any time. The conversation course is free-form and not based on any textbook. We have written about this in more detail here.
– The Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology is asking people to support Ukrainian Catholic University, with which it has had long-term cooperation. The university is currently helping Ukrainian citizens who have been forced to leave their homes. Prayers for the school are welcome; so is financial support, via the webpage supporting.ucu.edu.ua/en/donate.
– Due to the decreasing workload at the physical contact point for UP students and employees who have found themselves in difficult situations due to the invasion in Ukraine, this UP Volunteering Centre service has moved online. They can still be reached by e-mail at dobrovolnictvi.ukrajina@upol.cz and by telephone at +420 736 676 006 (daily from 8 am to 8 pm). More details can be found here.