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More than 100 Ukrainians, adults and children, gathered on Wednesday, in the University Square, to celebrate the Independence Day of Ukraine.
"This evening's event was their [Ukrainian citizens] desire to show their gratitude to the Romanian community and, at the same time, to celebrate Ukraine's Independence Day. There are almost 100 Ukrainians, adults and children, who come weekly to the Zi de Bine Community Centre and who want to say thank you through music and dance," Melania Medeleanu, president of the Zi de Bine Association, told AGERPRES.
She pointed out that opportunities for action were created for the Ukrainian community within the Zi de Bine community centre.
"We made all these workshops dedicated to the community so that they could come and find in the community centre a space where they can settle down, relax, feel safe, cry if they need to, learn new things, but step by step these were just pretexts to create the community. Step by step, what we set out to do is for them to feel that it's their space and to come up with ideas in turn. And it's very nice when a person comes who didn't succeed to look up from the ground six months ago and now he or she comes to you with a smile on his or her face and says: I have an idea, I want to do something. And we did Romanian-Ukrainian cultural evenings, we did all kinds of events that started from their needs and ideas," Medeleanu explained, told Agerpres.
According to her, over 1,500 Ukrainians have passed through this community centre since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
"We are able to talk about what we do at Zi de Bine and at the Zi de Bine Community Centre, where more than 1,500 people have passed so far since the war started, since we opened the community centre on April 6 2022. (...) So, if at the beginning all the questions I received from them were about rights in Romania, about temporary residence permits, about things that were temporary, now all these questions have changed. Zi de Bine is a space where the Ukrainian community has found openness and every day we have activities for them, from yoga classes, dance, robotics, chess, we have all kinds of activities for mothers and children, because most of them are ladies with their children and it is clear that a Ukrainian community of the Zi de Bine Centre has been formed," Medeleanu reported.
