IT HAS been over six months since Ukraine was invaded by Russia, and 100,000 people have sought refuge in the UK since then. Many towns and villages across the country have taken in Ukrainians with open arms - and one such town is Wiveliscombe which has welcomed 58 Ukrainian nationals.

The Wellington Weekly met up with some Ukrainian refugees at St Andrew’s Church in Wiveliscombe, where many go to study English.

The church is a bustling place with daily activities, workshops and community events.

Peter Pearson, chair of the charity Wivey Welcomes Refugees, teaches English in the church. The main goal is to help the refugees to become independent and find work in the UK.

“We offer beginner and intermediate lessons of English to our Ukrainian community, we want to empower them and help them to adjust to life in the UK,” he said.

Peter has taught English at schools and was previously the headteacher at a school in Nynehead. The charity has gained access to £2,000 worth of teaching books, but Peter said there is much more work to be done as there is a ‘real shortage of English lessons in Somerset’.

Peter hopes for more government funding in the future, and feels that some places have been overlooked by councils and more work is needed to establish and integrate some of the Ukrainian families that moved here.

Speaking to three Ukrainian people, they gave a real sense of the hardships that they had been through to get to the UK, many losing loved ones and family in the process.

Irina used to organise weddings and events before the war. She lived in Kharkiv, not far from the border with Russia. As soon as the war started she moved across the country. She applied to the UK scheme in May and started looking for hosts. From there, she moved to Poland and eventually got onto a plane to Bristol Airport with her 2 children to meet her hosts.

Irina’s husband is fighting in Ukraine, with some of her family also remaining. She said: “I decided to leave for the safety of my kids. Only schools with a bomb shelter could operate and the constant air raid sirens were impacting everyone’s mental health. The planes and bombings were making our position untenable.”

Similarly Anastasia trekked across country to the west of Ukraine when the war started. When she arrived she awaited word from her family and was planning on moving to Germany. She managed to get there, however after two months in Germany she found it incredibly hard to live as finding work was hard and the cost of living high.

She arrived in the UK on August 31 via Eurostar. She said: “All or most Ukrainian people in the east lived in appalling conditions. Me and my family lived in a flat on the ground floor. After the Russian army started to bomb our building, we decided to move to a bakery nearby.”

The Ukrainian army would visit the bakery and update them on the current situation. When it became apparent that things were not going well, Anastasia and her family decided to leave the area.

Anya has a similar story. She was originally from Kharkiv. She moved to the UK with her daughter aged 10 and he son aged 7.

She’s been in the UK for two months and says that the community in Wiveliscombe is ‘very helpful towards her people’.

“We recently had a celebratory dinner for Ukrainian Independence day, however I found it very hard to celebrate.”Anya said.

After the incredibly difficult year that the Ukrainian people have suffered, what is clear is how proud they are of their country - which many said they hoped to return to when the war is over.