By Monica Chang
Translated by Wu Hsiao-ting
Photos courtesy of Monica Chang
Displaced by war, they found refuge in Poland, where they share their expertise to light the way for fellow Ukrainians.
Adam Mickiewicz University and Tzu Chi organized the inaugural session of the medical Polish language course in Poznań in 2023.Among the Ukrainian medical professionals who took part, 11 passed the final exam and received certificates jointly issued by the university and the foundation. With recommendations from Poland’s employment services department, they became eligible to practice legally in the country.
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These classes aren’t just about learning. They’re a reminder that you’re not alone,” said Łukasz Baranowski, a Tzu Chi volunteer in Poland. His words capture a deeper meaning behind the vocational courses offered to Ukrainian refugees.
Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced across Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Poland, one of the main host countries, has sheltered many refugees. In Poznań, a major city in western Poland, Tzu Chi has supported more than 20 courses for Ukrainian refugees for over two years, providing classrooms, equipment, and materials to help them rebuild their lives.
The courses include Polish, English, digital skills, entrepreneurship, art therapy, and counseling. They are taught free of charge by Ukrainian volunteers. Formerly teachers, lawyers, musicians, or artists, these volunteers use their knowledge and experience to guide and uplift fellow refugees, helping them find their footing in a foreign land. Weekly attendance across all classes totals over a thousand.
Aid starts with respect
The Russia-Ukraine war triggered a humanitarian crisis affecting much of Europe. Dharma Master Cheng Yen attentively tracked developments after the war started, while Tzu Chi’s charity mission quickly began to organize a response. Just four days after the invasion, Monica Chang (張淑兒) and her husband, Łukasz Baranowski, contacted Tzu Chi. Chang is originally from Taiwan and a former employee of Tzu Chi’s Da Ai TV. The couple, residents of Poznań, wanted to help the rising number of Ukrainian refugees arriving in Poland. On March 5, they launched the foundation’s first local distribution.
Within three months, Tzu Chi had carried out dozens of distributions, providing over 30,000 aid packages to newly arrived Ukrainian families. “At first, we distributed goods we had purchased,” Baranowski recalled. “But we soon ran into problems. People would ask for items like underwear, socks, or other personal necessities that we hadn’t included. That’s when we realized that no matter how well we prepared, we couldn’t meet everyone’s individual needs.”
“Respect is the starting point of Tzu Chi’s relief work,” Chang added. She explained that Master Cheng Yen has long emphasized a compassionate approach—one that not only provides material aid but also maintains respect and human dignity.
To better serve displaced Ukrainians, Tzu Chi adopted a method used in previous relief efforts in the U.S., Mexico, and other countries: distributing gift cards. These allowed recipients to purchase what they needed most from designated retailers. Between May and July, Tzu Chi volunteers from more than a dozen countries helped distribute over 23,000 gift cards—each worth about 2,000 Polish zlotys (US$450)—across five Polish cities: Warsaw, Poznań, Opole, Lublin, and Szczecin. This approach, which offered families both flexibility and dignity, was warmly welcomed by local communities.
Six months into the war, Tzu Chi shifted from emergency relief to long-term support. Starting in August 2022, Tzu Chi Poznań expanded its assistance to Ukrainian families, including free dental care in partnership with Professor Karolina Anna Garreth at a hospital affiliated with the Poznań University of Medical Sciences; medical Polish language courses in collaboration with Adam Mickiewicz University to help Ukrainian doctors seek employment in local hospitals; vocational training for adults to improve job prospects; and art therapy and preschool education for children. These efforts have helped many Ukrainian families begin rebuilding stable lives in Poland. In 2024, alongside ongoing gift card distributions, Tzu Chi introduced medical allowance cards to help low-income Polish and Ukrainian families afford essential medications.
Olena Viktorova, a secondary school English teacher from Lviv in western Ukraine, arrived in Poznań with her two children and just two suitcases. “I thought I would never again stand in front of a class,” she said. “So when a volunteer asked me, ‘Would you be willing to help other mothers learn English?’ I burst into tears and said yes.”
Today, she teaches adult English classes twice a week at the Tzu Chi Poznań office. Some of her students are in their 40s or 50s and have never studied a foreign language before. “This isn’t just an English class; it’s a space for them to rediscover their courage,” she said with a smile. Her students learn how to write résumés in English, prepare for job interviews, and express their aspirations.
Art teacher Yulia Tkachuk helps children process trauma through acrylic paint and imagination. A former lecturer at an art institute in eastern Ukraine, she specialized in industrial design and contemporary aesthetics. Now in Poznań, she guides children as they paint flowers that grow in their homeland, memories and scenes of the war, and visions of the homes they long for. “These children don’t speak,” she said, “but through their art, they’re telling us: they’re still here.”
The Tzu Chi office in Poznań offers a range of classes for Ukrainian refugees. Here, retired Ukrainian university associate professor Olena Mladzievska leads a children’s choir class, using music as a form of healing.
The most popular course
Olena Mladzievska is a retired associate professor from the Faculty of Culture and Arts at Kherson State University in Ukraine. Her husband was a shipbuilder. In April 2022, Russian forces occupied their city, Kherson. Although it was retaken nine months later, the city was left in ruins. The couple drove 18 kilometers (11 miles) through a perilous area, navigating streets in utter darkness and dodging shellfire, before finally boarding a refugee bus to Poland. Once they had arrived, there was little relief―only silent exhaustion and deep anxiety about the future. Displacement, financial hardship, and uncertainty turned each day into a new struggle.
In Poznań, Mladzievska began teaching vocal performance, piano, and musical theater at the Tzu Chi office. The children in her classes had endured war-related trauma similar to her own; some had stopped speaking, while others were terrified of sound, haunted by the relentless explosions etched into their young minds. “The sadness in their eyes is unmistakable,” Mladzievska said, choking up. “But when they begin to sing, something stirs inside them. They remember what joy feels like.”
She prepares all her teaching materials on her own time and never asks for anything in return. “I once had everything and lost it all,” she said. “But at Tzu Chi, I feel like a teacher again. I feel useful.”
While helping others, many volunteer teachers also learn to rebuild their own lives. Math teacher Tetyana Fedartsova teaches Ukrainian children how to solve equations while learning Polish herself. Computer skills instructor Iryna Grechana writes lesson plans after her children go to sleep, helping middle-aged and older mothers learn to create résumés and send emails. These practical skills have become tools not just for helping others, but also for creating stability in their own lives.
“I teach my students how to find work,” said one volunteer teacher. “But in truth, I’m also learning how to live again.” Reflecting on this, Monica Chang noted, “This isn’t just one-way charity—it’s mutual support. By teaching others, they’re also rebuilding their own strength.”
Oksana, a single mother of four, enrolled in Tzu Chi’s Google Digital Tools course, where she learned office software and remote work skills to prepare for freelancing from home. “Tzu Chi didn’t just teach me skills,” she said. “They helped me believe in myself again.” Now, she volunteers with Tzu Chi to give back and has become a role model for other Ukrainian mothers.
Among the various offerings, the Entrepreneurship course has proven especially popular. It’s taught by Kateryna Volotkovych, a Ukrainian lawyer who had already been practicing law in Poland before the war and founded her own law firm in Poznań. Well-versed in both the Ukrainian and Polish legal systems, Volotkovych offers free classes at Tzu Chi Poznań every week. She teaches students how to write business plans, analyze market risks, understand Polish startup regulations, and apply for subsidies. She also provides one-on-one legal consultations.
“Many people think they have nothing,” she said. “But what they really need is just a starting point.”
Assisting in flood relief
Having fled the devastation of war, Tzu Chi’s Ukrainian volunteers, like the teachers mentioned above, have gradually rebuilt their confidence and regained a sense of purpose by helping others. In doing so, they have not only helped fellow refugees find a path to a new life, but also brought their spirit of sincere humanity to Polish society.
In April this year, Tzu Chi distributed gift cards to 700 households affected by flooding in Głuchołazy and Lewin Brzeski, two towns in southwestern Poland. Notably, around 80 percent of the volunteers helping on-site were Ukrainians. They had traveled from Warsaw, Poznań, and Lublin to take part. Ukrainian volunteers have become an essential force in Tzu Chi’s charitable work in Poland.
To this day, relentless bombings continue to bring death and destruction to Ukraine, while displaced families abroad carry deep psychological wounds. Yet within Tzu Chi, there is a source of healing—people are offered not only food, shelter, and medical care, but most importantly, love.
As Olena Mladzievska described, “This is a place where pain and sorrow are transformed into care and warmth. Every act of kindness helps mend a broken spirit. I lost my home, but here, I found a family.”
Ukrainian volunteers currently living in Warsaw assist at a Tzu Chi distribution for flood victims in southwestern Poland in April, giving back in gratitude for the kindness they received from the Polish people. Monica Chang
