Polish Couple Receives UN Nansen Prize For Helping Ukrainians Fleeing War
Wladyslaw Grochowski and his wife, Lena, have been awarded the prestigious Nansen Prize by the United Nations for providing safe housing for temporary migrants from Ukraine who were forced to flee the war started by Russia.
This was reported by Euronews, which interviewed the couple.
"They did much more than just assist refugees. They expanded the opportunities for refugees, helping them find jobs, undergo training, and integrate into society," said Andreas Kirchhof, Senior External Relations Adviser at UNHCR.
From the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Polish couple, leveraging their own network of hotels, decided to offer shelter to Ukrainians fleeing Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine.
"On February 24, we took the first refugees in at the hotel in Lublin. On the next day, crisis centres were created in all 16 hotels. We welcomed everyone who came to us. I am proud that we managed all that. It was quite a challenge," said Wladyslaw Grochowski in an interview with Euronews.
Since winter 2022, the couple has provided over 500,000 free nights to Ukrainians in need.
"You [travel] with all your family, with one suitcase, and you don't know where you are going... or where you will end up sleeping. And when we came, there were chefs, a lot of employees [waiting for us], and we got warm food. And there was a whole bus of displaced people from different cities in Ukraine. And they fed us, gave us linen, they gave us everything. It was so important to us," recalled forced Ukrainian migrant Kateryna Darynska.
It's worth noting that the Polish couple established their own foundation, Lena Grochowska Foundation, back in 2014. The organization's main goal was to support people of Polish descent returning to the country.
Currently, the couple has been supporting forced migrants for almost two years. In 2022, the Lena Grochowska Foundation provided 4.1 million euros for housing for migrants and opened support centers in six different cities in Poland.
It's important to mention that due to the war initiated by Russia in Ukraine, approximately 8.25 million Ukrainians have been forced to leave their homes.