Strong together: that was the basic idea of the reception of Ukrainian refugees in Anderlecht. Multi Masters Group, together with several partners, gave shelter, relief goods and training to refugees who had to flee their country due to the Russian invasion. But it didn’t stop there, the project soon expanded. And we were only too happy to contribute once again!
Start-up of the reception of Ukrainian refugees
The initiative for the project came from Alter Pharma, one of our customers. The Brussels-based company provided a building and organised an emergency shelter at Square Marie Curie in Anderlecht. Multi Masters Group, several other partners, the municipality of Anderlecht and the Ukrainian embassy were only too happy to support the project. Cleaning Masters, the cleaning division of Multi Masters Group, took care of cleaning the building at the start.
People in training grows from 9 to 60
The project became a success and the municipality of Anderlecht, together with the non-profit association Communa, recently took matters into their own hands. An extra floor was opened in the building and the original 60 places became 120 to 150. And us? We remained partners, of course! Rachid, inspector at Cleaning Masters, took charge of the coordination right from the start. “We see here mainly women and children who were looking for shelter,” he says.
At the start of the shelter project, Rachid soon accompanied some refugees. “Initially, I gave eight to nine people cleaning training in the building. Since 1 September, we saw a huge increase in that number! It has since reached 60 people.” This not only allows the Ukrainians to maintain the building themselves under the supervision of our inspector Rachid, it also increases their chances of finding a job in Belgium.
“We want to help these people find work through Recrewtment”
Rachid took the initiative to register some refugees with Recrewtment. “That way we might be able to help several people get a job. Of course, we do need to see that everything is in order administratively first. But once that is settled, we can start looking at what possibilities there are to help them find work.”
Auxiliary
Besides the cleaning training and guidance, Multi Masters Group also lends a hand by providing all kinds of relief goods. These include cleaning products, cleaning materials and consumables such as toilet paper.
