Almería (EFE).- Ihor Sokolov is one of the many Ukrainians who arrived in Spain last year to escape the war with Russia, in his case thanks to an Erasmus scholarship that allows him to study at the University of Almería (UAL), and in barely a year he has become the Spanish junior men’s volleyball champion with Unicaja Costa de Almería.
Although his family lives in Sloviansk, in the Donetsk Oblast, Ihor was studying Management at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) in Kiev, so he lived for a year in the Ukrainian capital before the war began.
“I left because of the war but I looked for an Erasmus to continue studying and thus not waste time,” he explains in an interview with EFE, assisted in the translation by Iryna Protsik, a Red Cross monitor, the entity that watches over this refugee almost from the beginning. of his adventure in Spain.
“I arrived here on May 6 and entered the Red Cross program in June,” recalls the 18-year-old, who assures that the NGO has helped him adapt in all aspects, financially and with room and board. His mother also enjoyed this help for two months, after which she returned to Ukraine.
“At first it was very hard because I didn’t know how to express myself. Thanks to the English and Spanish that I have been learning, now I have many friends and acquaintances, ”she says.
As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, the Red Cross launched 50 reception places at the Inturjoven shelter in Almería to provide accommodation and food for displaced people.
Volleyball comes out to meet
By chance, the Emilio Campra Youth Stadium was located right opposite, where Ihor saw other youngsters play volleyball. “I asked permission to play just once and I already stayed that summer because I was playing well. In September they offered me to play for Unicaja ”, he reveals.
He confesses that in Ukraine he had never been part of a team as professional as this one, in which he plays as an opposite, the player who does most of the team’s shots.
He maintains that he still has a lot to work on to reach the level of his teammates, although he also admits that he would like to improve in order to advance, since next year will be the last in which he can compete in the junior category.
Meanwhile, he is clear that it is a priority to continue his studies to be able to work in what he likes in the future, although he does not give up the dream of being able to play in Ukraine, “where it would be easier because of the language and the mentality.”
Live in Spain
Although he likes “the climate and that the people are very open” about Spain, and despite considering the members of the Red Cross as his “family”, he hopes that the war “will end soon” so that he can return to his country, where he their mother, father, sister and grandmother are waiting.
Above all, he wants to be reunited with his father, who “stayed working in his business at the border”, which is why he has not been able to speak to him in person for a long time.
However, Ihor does not stop. “I have met many people of many nationalities. For example, my first six months here I was only with people from France. Now I have made a lot of friends with a group of Italian women, ”she says.
This university student has participated in so many activities that he has even been chosen by his classmates as ‘Mr. Erasmus’, an award voted for during the last band competition, which surprised him when he was competing in the Spanish championship in Soria with the team that also won has become “a family” to him.
An 18-month itinerary
On February 1, the team from the Red Cross Reception and Integration Program for International Protection Applicants and Beneficiaries in Almería decided to settle in the same Inturjoven shelter to carry out their activity there.
Now they not only have families from Ukraine, but also other Venezuelan Colombians and other nationalities.
Elena Yebra is a Red Cross social worker and points out to EFE that Ihor is participating in an 18-month itinerary in which he has been offered a “family network” that provides support and help in everything he needs, in addition to giving him Spanish classes and a roof under which to sleep and feed.
“At the end of summer this itinerary will end. He wants to continue living in Spain and his mother wants to finance his university. He is a charm and we love being with him ”, she concludes.