Alla and Jelena are from Ukraine. Both women studied Lithuanian for three months at Vilnius University. When asked about their motivation, they say they studied out of gratitude and respect for Lithuania and its people.
Alla is currently working at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, where she is researching and cataloguing the sermons of 18th-century Catholic priests. The woman, who has worked as a librarian all her life, says that this position is new to her, but very interesting. "This job is like a gift to me," says Alla. Alla also speaks of her colleagues with great gratitude and affection: they are true professionals, extremely tolerant, always ready to help, "I feel accepted at work", "the care of my colleagues warms my heart".
"On the one hand, I am learning Lithuanian because our future is uncertain, we don't know when it will all end. On the other hand, we live among such people, in such a compassionate country, that I am learning Lithuanian out of gratitude: I want to be able to speak the language of the people in whose homes I live. This is very important to me, because now I have no other way of saying thank you", says Alla.
Jelena has also found a job that matches her education - she works as an accountant for a small private company. Although she has studied Lithuanian several times, Jelena's knowledge of the language was not enough for her everyday work: "I know a lot of words, but I'm still afraid to speak. She is happy that thanks to her understanding colleagues and the director, all the tricky situations are solved in a positive, joking way, but she felt that she had to learn.
"Alla is right, we don't know where we will be living in a month or a year, but at the moment we are in a country that has welcomed us with an open heart, provided us with a home and a job - Lithuanians are very tolerant, good people. So I think it is necessary to learn the language. It is just the right thing to do: to speak the language of the country you live in. I do it out of respect for Lithuania. Wherever we are - in Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Hungary - we have to learn the language in order to integrate into the life of the country", explains Jelena.
These free Lithuanian language courses are part of the project titled "Lithuanian Language Course for People Who Have Fled Ukraine due to Russia's War of Aggression Against Ukraine". The project is funded funded by the Fund for Bilateral Relations under the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021.