When the war first broke out, Tetyana was living in Sievierodonetsk, a city in Luhansk Oblast in the east of Ukraine. It didn’t take long for the shelling to hit the city, and she was forced to flee with her husband and three-year-old child to find safety – a decision she didn’t find easy.

“I was born there and just everything, all my life passed there,” she says. “That is why it was very difficult to leave it all behind immediately and go. It was necessary to leave the town because it was really terrible and cannot be expressed in words when you are sitting in a basement with your child under the shelling.”

Now settled in Dnipro, Tetyana takes English classes at the IRC centre with her new friend Yevgeniya and says the boost it gives her has been transformative.

“When you come to the centre, you leave it so fulfilled, more energetic, and you have the desire to live despite the constant anxiety,” she says. “You receive useful information, communication, new acquaintances and friendship here, which is something that the majority is currently lacking because most people live in the news cycle. It is very difficult mentally because you get bogged down.”

Though Tetyana still dreams of being able to return home to Sievierodonetsk, she and her family have accepted they might not be able to do that anytime soon. However, even after a year of war, she remains hopeful for the future.

“We want to live a happy life and raise our child,” she explains. “Maybe to have another baby to have someone to play with. We believe that our country will prosper and we will live happily in our home country. I hope that the war will end. That we will be able to sleep calmly, to live an ordinary and peaceful life.”

Ukraine war: 3 Ukrainian women on the struggles they’ve faced over the last 12 months