When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of refugees began pouring into Warsaw central station in Poland every day in search of safety. Most were native Ukrainians, while others were third-country nationals who had built a life in Ukraine. For all those fleeing the devastation, it was a time of terror and uncertainty, but for the latter group, it was particularly perilous.
“From the very beginning of the war, we were getting information about all kinds of abuses that non-Ukrainian [refugees] were facing in Ukraine while trying to get to Poland,” says activist Jarmiła Rybicka. “At the border on both sides, non-Ukrainians were expelled or sent to the back of the queues. They were pushed out from trains and told that there was no space for them. Meanwhile, white Ukrainians escaped.”
Once they made it into Poland, minority refugees continued to face obstacles at every turn, starting at the train station, where they were not even allowed to use the toilets for free. Prejudice has made finding secure accommodation and work doubly challenging.
Marginalised refugees, including women, people of colour and those from the LGBTQ+ community, have found a lifeline at Conflict Kitchen, or Kuchnia Konfliktu, a women-led social enterprise founded by Rybicka in 2016, when she was just 24 years old. It began as a zero-waste, vegan bistro in Warsaw co-run by refugees, bringing them together with local communities through the universal language of food and enabling them to develop new skills, including learning Polish.
Now, Conflict Kitchen has grown exponentially. It facilitates cookery workshops around Poland by women such as Zargan, a Chechen refugee who arrived in Poland with her four young children in 2004 after fleeing the second Chechen war. She teaches other refugees to make dishes such as chepalgash, a pie filled with cheese and wild garlic.
“When I came to Poland I couldn’t work because I had back problems as a result of being tortured,” says Zargan. “Jarmiła ordered some equipment for me so I could cook and earn an income. I love running cooking workshops – it’s fun and helps me make money, and I really like meeting new people.”
Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Conflict Kitchen has worked in partnership with ActionAid, an international women and girls charity. Together, they initially offered emergency support, including hot food and water at Warsaw central station.
Although she doesn’t discriminate, working with refugees from Ukraine as well as elsewhere, Rybicka has a particular passion for helping those from more marginalised communities. “I work with non-Ukrainian [refugees] because they face much more discrimination on so many levels,” says Rybicka.
Qamar, 28, is one such person. Originally from Somalia, she sought asylum in Poland in 2020, staying in a refugee camp for the first six months. “But when the Ukrainian situation happened, they emptied places for Ukrainian refugees,” she says. “It felt like there were degrees of refugees – first degree refugees, second degree refugees, and then Africans.”
Thankfully, Conflict Kitchen helped her integrate with the local population. “Since I came to Conflict Kitchen, I have learned to become independent and I’ve made a lot of friends. Going to events helped me to meet people, so now I know all the cooks in the back kitchen from dancing classes or Polish classes.”
With funding from ActionAid, the enterprise created Integration Hostel, providing temporary accommodation to refugees like Qamar, originally from countries such as Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, and those from the Roma community. Later, the shelter was transformed into independent flats so people could begin rebuilding their lives.
Today, with ActionAid, Conflict Kitchen provides case work support to refugees, helping them to access vital services such as housing, education and employment.
“From the beginning, I had this feeling that ActionAid has this anti-racist approach and was open to the fact that we will support all refugees,” Rybicka says. “We noticed that they were eager to support our work as it is. There was no pressure or expectation that we should support only Ukrainians. That’s why we put so much emphasis on projects and programmes that refugees create themselves.”
For example, projects such as Refugee Dance Classes, which connect refugees from many cultures with Polish citizens. Ira, 34, who escaped eastern Ukraine with her five-year-old son, Artem, teaches Zumba classes at Baza, an inclusive community centre for minority groups and partner of Conflict Kitchen. Her husband, who works as a border guard in Ukraine, remains there, and Ira hopes to return to her home one day when the conflict is over.
“When I was pregnant, I didn’t expect that I would bring my son up in a foreign country alone without my husband,” says Ira. “It’s very hard and I’m very emotional. There’s been a lot of very hard things. But there are people around who have helped me to not go crazy. I have support and can ask people to help me.
“Conflict Kitchen is a great organisation – they help us to live and to feel better. They support people from different countries and different religions, with different thoughts. You can be yourself and everybody will understand, which is great.”
Back home in Ukraine, she met few people from other countries except Russia. Meeting people from all over the world has changed her perspective on other cultures and helped her to realise that every refugee is someone forced to leave everything behind due to events beyond their control.
“We get to know people rather than be afraid of them,” she says. “Before the war, I didn’t understand what a refugee was. I couldn’t understand who these people were. Now I’m a refugee, I understand.”
Support ActionAid
To learn more about the work being done by ActionAid to support displaced women and girls around the world who are overcoming life-changing challenges, visit actionaid.org.uk
