In Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu (Rhône),
Fabienne jumped at 4:16 a.m. Thursday, when a text message alerted her that the bus carrying 49 people from Lviv (Ukraine) was going to arrive around 5 a.m. in the center of Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu (Rhône). Due to a breakdown 70 km from the finish, this 50-year-old bank employee had to wait four more hours before meeting Maria (15) and Victoria (16), two Ukrainian teenagers for the first time. whom she has agreed to host for an indefinite period.
“With my husband and our two children, we didn’t think long,” says Fabienne. Everything had to be organized in a hurry and when I see that even my 10-year-old daughter wanted to help sort out the donations on Wednesday, it proves how much all of Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu shows solidarity. This small town of 4,800 inhabitants, located 25 km from Lyon, is indeed moving heaven and earth to help Ukraine, with which it has had a special history for more than ten years. The reason ? The creation of a Lyon-Lviv branch of the cultural and humanitarian association happy little shoes.
“I was not ready to leave my parents and my husband”
Before Covid-19, several families in Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu took the habit of hosting and sponsoring children from the Veseli Cherevychky dance school for about ten days, on the occasion of their tour. in the Lyon region. “As of Saturday, seeing the Russian attacks, we launched an action plan with a large collection of donations and the spontaneous proposal of residents wanting to welcome Ukrainians fleeing their country at war, summarizes Mayor Raphaël Ibanez. It took us all to heart to see this bus arriving from Lviv, especially since some children made the trip without their mother. »
This is not the case for Darila (11), who is going through this ordeal alongside her mother Adriana, a professional singer who has already come to Lyon for a concert at the basilica of Fourvière. Both have been living with Françoise Cabanet (73) since Thursday, before continuing their journey to Vendée in a few days, where another regional branch of Happy Little Shoes will accommodate them. “I was not ready to leave my parents and my husband, who is currently preparing medicine for the army in Lviv, but I did it for my daughter”, slips Adriana, her eyes reddened and her voice trembling, while like his daughter taking care of the English translation.
“We are not intended to replace an NGO”
Françoise Cabanet, who still exchanges on Facebook with her former regular guests Yarko, Petro and Taras, “now all adults and therefore not having the right to leave Ukraine”, cried in Adriana’s arms on Thursday morning. “With my husband, it’s all natural, we absolutely wanted to make a move,” says the retiree, who has lived in Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu for 20 years.
In recent days, the association has received more than 500 emails offering accommodation throughout the Lyon region. “We are not intended to replace an NGO, specifies Aline Mouterde, volunteer of the Happy little shoes. We want to remain a local initiative on the scale of Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, to help the children of the Lviv dance school as a priority. »
“A rotation between families to prevent weariness from setting in”
The accommodation of young Ukrainians and the few mothers present still raises questions in the Rhone commune: “We do not know the deadline for this stay, it is the major difficulty for all these host families, continues Aline Mouterde . We are considering a rotation every two weeks to prevent weariness from setting in. Then from May 1, we should be able to reach the Franco-Ukrainian holiday center located in Rochepaule (Ardèche). »
In the meantime, around a hundred volunteers, as if invested with a mission, take turns day and night to organize boxes, bags and barrels of clothing, foodstuffs, hygiene products and survival blankets, and fit everything into a car and a truck destined to quickly return to Ukraine. In several rooms located in the basement of the town hall and dedicated to the collection, the effervescence is total. Among the 200 donations brought to the town hall over the past four days, some have come from Isère, proof of the notoriety acquired by Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu throughout the region, thanks to its responsiveness.
“We are going to open the school canteen to all these children”
“I never imagined that there could be such a mind-blowing amount of donations in our municipality,” says Elodie (35), seven months pregnant but omnipresent behind the scenes, to the point of preparing labels in Ukrainian (“thank you Google Translate”) to occupy his periods of insomnia. As the Veseli Cherevychky dance school has 450 young dancers and singers, the plan is to send his bus back to Lviv this Friday, already crowded with collected donations, in order to then bring another fifty Ukrainians to the Rhône. And so on “as long as the borders are not closed”?
Raphaël Ibanez imagines in any case well all these children and teenagers integrating the schools and the college of his commune. “It is clear that we are going to open the school canteen to all these children”, he specifies. In the meantime, Fabienne is delighted to see her “smiling” guests Maria and Victoria get their bearings at home and head out for a walk in the sun on Thursday afternoon after their 48-hour drive. Still “anguished by the sirens” of Lviv, Adriana is preparing for her part to visit the Tête d’Or park, with her daughter and Françoise.
“Seeing children living in this situation in 2022 is scary”
A mass will be dedicated to Ukraine on Saturday at the church of Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, and the 54th edition of its emblematic carnival, which should attract 40,000 spectators from March 11 to 13, is announced with a strong thought for the sad Ukrainian news.
While filling bags with hygiene products, Elodie concludes: “Seeing with our eyes children living this situation in 2022 is scary. But at the same time, two years ago, people were nudging each other in France to snatch the last rolls of toilet paper from supermarkets. It warms the heart to see that we can switch to the opposite extreme. »
Contact for donations of food and baby care products: [email protected]