RAYA

Mission in Poland

Recently, news media has been redolent with horrible stories about Ukrainians refugees fleeing the war currently raging in their homeland. According to a July 27, 2022 situation report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of that date, over 12 million Ukrainians had been driven from their homes because of the war, and over 6 million of these displaced people had fled to other countries in Europe.

Responding to the Ukraine refugee crisis, the RAYA team began researching ways that RAYA could contribute to the global aid effort. Internet searches quickly yielded this website hosted by the Polish government, which includes referals to various civil service organizations providing support to refugees in Poland.

Poland shares a 535 km border with Ukraine, and generally welcomes Ukrainian refugees. In fact, Poland does not place any conditions or restrictions on Ukrainian refugees entering the country. So it is no surprise that nearly 1.25 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to Poland and been registered for temporary protection status there.

Fundacja Ocalenie (literally “Rescue Foundation”) is one of the organizations listed in on the Polish government website. Ocalenie operates Help Centers for Foreigners in Warsaw and Łomża, offering free Polish lessons, carrying out adaptation and integration support programs, and looking for housing for its clients. Ocalenie also operates a youth center for children of refugees in Łomża and a safe space for children at the refugee intake center in Przemyśl, near the border with Ukraine.

The RAYA team reached out to Ocalenie right away by email. The Ocalenie team responded promptly, informing us that Ocalenie was laying plans to host English-speaking volunteers at its safe space for children in Przemyśl during autumn 2022. The team informed us that Ocalenie typically hosts volunteers for a minimum of 1 week per, but volunteers are generally welcome to stay on as long as they are available. Ocalenie provides basic accomodations for volunteers near the refugee intake center. We asked if we could send our founder Richard Mertl as a RAYA delegate for an initial 6-week stint, and the proposal was quickly accepted. Rich will sign a volunteer agreement with Ocalenie — similar to an at-will employment agreement — and prepare to travel to Warsaw to participate in a one-day training workshop on August 27, 2022. Rich’s volunteer work in Przemysl will begin on September 4.

Rich’s simple role during his term of volunteer service will be to entertain and care for children in the safe space. From RAYA’s perspective as an advocate for youth, an even more important objective for Rich will be to seek out and vet similar opportunities for younger Americans to come to Poland to provide similar support to Ukrainian war refugees. For more information about this project, follow Rich’s blog posts by navigating to our blog page and searching category “Poland 2022“

China

Because of China’s rapid social, economic, technical and political evolution and its increasing prominence in the global economy and importance as a major trading partner of the United States, we believe this country is an obvious and essential region for American youth to experience and understand.  We have deep respect for the energy, resourcefulness and tenacity of the Chinese people in general, and strong conviction that China will present young Americans with remarkable challenges and opportunities for decades to come. Because of its large and well-educated population, it is relatively easy for China to accommodate a relatively high number of American students. We work to foster interest among American teens about current events relating to China and its people and encourage American students to seek opportunities to study there.