It has been amazing to see what God has been doing through local churches to support Ukrainian refugees who have recently arrived in our towns and cities. Stephen, Assistant Pastor from Winchester Vineyard, has shared what they have been doing to support and build relationships with young refugees.

At Winchester Vineyard Church we have been helping assist people seeking sanctuary in the UK through our Storehouse project by providing clothing, baby equipment and food. In fact, due to the war in Ukraine we saw such a huge increase in the number of Ukrainian families through May, June and July that we needed to add in three additional appointment slots each week to cope with the demand. 

As we have gotten to know these families and been working alongside the support networks that have started up locally, it became clear that young people in particular were finding it hard to cope with the huge upheaval they have experienced, and many were anxious and feeling isolated ahead of the new school year. 

We decided to partner with other local churches to host an event for youth at our venue for young people seeking sanctuary, where they could hang out together, play some games and have fun, alongside some local young people from our churches and nearby schools to help these youth integrate and get to know each other better. 

We had a pilot event during the bank holiday weekend at the end of August with 25 young people, when we played pool, xbox and table tennis, made crafts together and played sports, as well as hanging out on our converted double decker youth bus! Plenty of pizza and ice cream was consumed and we hope that many of the young people feel more at home here and have new contacts that they can call on as friends as they start school this week.