Several hours ago I sent an email to Łódź Council team that has been dedicated to help Ukrainian refugees. I asked them to put me in touch with a couple of people who would consider coming to the UK. I initially thought I may wait 2-3 days for an answer (they must be busy there) but it came quite quickly. Only that I was told they don’t provide ‘those type of services’. They didn’t even direct me to anyone else.

I have mixed feelings about it. I’m not happy because, clearly, they could be a bit nicer and more helpful, however, the problem with help from government organisations is that, when I get it, I somehow assume that things will be fine just because responsible people take care of them, and I forget to be vigilant. And the truth is, unfortunately, that we are all responsible for ourselves. If I take a refugee, things may go wrong and I’d have to deal with them somehow. And the cold response from the council is a good reminder of that.

I still want to help, you know? But I’m aware that with my disability I am more likely to put myself into trouble. And I’m not even saying any serious trouble here, but possibly I will not be able to provide the refugee with emotional support and they won’t like me for that but will still want to stay in my flat because it will be convenient. So they will be staying here while not liking me and possibly not understanding why I’m helping them so they will ignore me on social level even more that I want to be ignored. And that will create tension and misunderstandings. They may think I really need this £350 from the government and will disrespect me and I will feel used as a result.

How can I prevent that? We all know that talking about issues directly doesn’t help because, when I speak directly people don’t take me seriously and when they speak directly I still think they meant something else. Oh well…

Still no one responded to my Facebook ads. Maybe my profile photo is too sexy? I saw British family that advertised yesterday on the same group and they had over 1500 responses within 2h.

I’ll try again tomorrow, with a different ad, where I say a bit more about myself.

Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m single that is putting people off? I guess if I was a refugee I’d much rather stay with a family. It’s less likely that they’d do strange things, like having constant parties.