Ukrainian women's stories to be told in exhibition

An exhibition telling the stories of eight Ukrainian women now living in the UK hopes to shine a light on the ongoing conflict in their home country as well as raise money for aid efforts.

Put together in Warwickshire by the Leamington Spa-based community organisation Belveder, Voices of Ukraine will be at the All Saints Parish Church from 3 February to 3 March.

Alongside the stories, written out as full testimonies, there will be photographs of the women and their families, alongside a collection of unseen photographs from when the war began in 2022.

Funds raised will help the organisation pay for an ambulance to deliver resources to Ukraine.

"We wanted to do something with a permanence to it," said volunteer Oliver Ansell-Hodges.

"We settled upon some kind of exhibition… to raise awareness with British people… that four years on, the war is still going on and, from different media outlets we've spoken to, friends and family we've spoken to, they're all asking the same question which is: 'What's going on over there?'"

"We wanted to understand their lives in Ukraine, the journeys that led them to coming to the UK, how they got out of Ukraine during a humanitarian and refugee crisis," Ansell-Hodges said.

"Then the lives that they've set up now in the UK, alongside what their aspirations are... and their musings on both the war itself and messages of complete gratitude to British people for what they've done.

"It's extremely important that Brits understand the level of trauma and the level of difficulty and hardship that these ladies had to endure."

The women came from all over Ukraine and are now scattered around the county, in places like Warwick, Kenilworth and Leamington.

The war started in February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine.

Ansell-Hodges has been a volunteer at the organisation since June 2024 and is leading on the exhibition.

Belveder is the charitable branch of the town's Polish centre and is currently looking to secure charitable status.

"Given their close heritage links to the Polish centre, when the war in Ukraine started four years ago, they became heavily involved in different humanitarian efforts to try and assist their neighbours [in Ukraine], their brothers and sisters, in any way possible," he said.

"We've sent 60 ambulances and SUVs of different sorts from the UK, from the West Midlands, over to Ukraine - be it the border between Poland and Ukraine or into Ukraine itself.

"I believe we're now up to well over 300 tonnes of aid."

"Admittedly from what we've seen on a humanitarian basis, it's very dire; I have a lot of dear friends in Ukraine currently living in minus 10 conditions," Ansell-Hodges told the BBC.

Money raised by the exhibition will help with their efforts for people in need.

"We're hoping to raise money for an ambulance and to be able to fully stock it and deliver it, so we've ran the figures and it costs about £10,000 to purchase an ambulance, repair it… to stock it with things from tourniquets to field stretchers, incontinence pads for the elderly, Easter chocolate for some of the kids in the orphanage," he said.

The exhibition will be at the church from 3 February to 3 March, opening from 14:00 to 17:30 GMT on Mondays, 10:30 to 17:30 on Tuesdays to Saturdays and 13:00 to 17:30 on Sundays.

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