A young Romanian woman from Chernivtsi teaches the Romanian language to Ukrainians who fled the war and settled in Romania.

Ana-Cristina Tarateanu-Mihaiesi is 26 years old and is a graduate of the Faculty of Letters - Romanian Language and Literature section, and of the Faculty of Geography - Tourism and Management section of the Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University.

She was born on July 1, 1997 in a family of Romanian ethnics from the Chernivtsi region, her father being the writer and journalist Vasile Tarateanu, honorary member of the Romanian Academy, who died on August 8, 2022 at the age of 76, and her mother - the director of the Mihai Eminescu Museum, Elena Tarateanu. From childhood she was educated in the atmosphere of love for Romanian culture.

Until the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, she worked at the Romanian language editorial office of the Chernivtsi territorial studio of the Ukrainian public television and radio station. After the Russian invasion, the young journalist resigned and focused on voluntary work, and then she started working as a Romanian language teacher at a non-governmental organisation in Sighisoara, which supports Ukrainian refugees.

"The war caught me in Romania, because I was on holiday. Because I didn't know what would happen, because of fear, I didn't go back to Ukraine. I decided, for my safety, to stay in Romania. We were all clicking refresh on the news to see what was going on and there was a desire from inside to do something, to help with something, with whatever I could and the only thing I could do was to translate, to be a translator. There were maybe up to 10,000 Ukrainians passing through in one night. Some were in transit, others wanted to stay in Romania. My role was to establish a dialogue between a Romanian and a Ukrainian. I spent nights there, at Sculeni, at the border crossing with the Republic of Moldova," said Ana-Cristina Tarateanu-Mihaiesi, who became a volunteer at Sculeni Customs in Iasi county, supporting Ukrainians coming mainly from eastern Ukraine, which was under Russian occupation.

After a while, when the number of refugees began to decrease, the young Romanian woman decided to return to Chernivtsi. Marked by the drama of the refugees, she could no longer work in radio and television, so she began to offer language assistance to Ukrainian refugees. It was in this context that she was contacted by the Light of the World Association in Sighisoara, which set up a kindergarten and a school.

"I got in touch with the people I met at customs and they started asking to learn Romanian, because they have been in Romania for some time and they don't understand anything, the language is too complicated for them. I started with some individual courses, as a friend, because it was not my job. I started teaching Romanian to some Ukrainians, but as time went by, more and more requests came in. Then I was asked by an association in Sighisoara called Light of the World, which has a project to support Ukrainian refugees. They provided emergency assistance, met the basic needs of the refugees, related to food, shelter, after which they organized some courses to learn Romanian. Also within this project a kindergarten and a school for Ukrainians was organized, a project that is financially supported by UNICEF, and it is in this school and kindergarten that I am now working. We deal with the online, but the school is physically operating. The opportunity I have is that I know the Ukrainian language very well and I can explain the grammar of the Romanian language in the mother tongue of the Ukrainians," she said.

In addition to the students of the school in Sighisoara, dozens of other refugees living in various locations in Romania, either in Bucharest, Galati or Ploiesti, received Romanian lessons online.

Having become a teacher of Romanian without having planned to do so, Ana-Cristina Tarateanu-Mihaiesi is satisfied with the results of her work. She says that many adult Ukrainians have decided to stay in Romania permanently because they have learned Romanian through her. At the same time, many children and teenagers have integrated perfectly into the Romanian education system also thanks to the Romanian language courses they attended with her help.

"At first they stayed in Romania because Romania is close to Ukraine, hoping that when the war is over they will return home. Now, after learning Romanian, many say they will stay in Romania for good. I also have a boy who already works in an IT company and next year he wants to go to university in Romania. The greatest joy for me is when I see that people speak Romanian," said Vasile Tarateanu's daughter.

Ana-Cristina Tarateanu-Mihaiesti is present at all events and manifestations of the Romanian community in the Chernivtsi region, being involved in the promotion of the Romanian language and culture in Northern Bucovina. She took concrete actions to the Ukrainian authorities for the Romanian language to be used in the services at the Church of the Three Hierarchs in the old cemetery of Chernivtsi.

She took over the presidency of the Cultural Charity Foundation Casa Limbii Romane (Romanian Language House, editor's note) whose main objective now is the renovation of the Aron Pumnul memorial house in Chernivtsi. AGERPRES(RO - author: Cristian Lupascu, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - editor: Simona Iacob)