When Luba’s Ukrainian care home was bombed in March, life changed dramatically for her.

Luba’s daughter Irina has been living in the UK for 20 years, while Luba has been living in a care home in the Kyiv region of Ukraine for the last 5 years. When it was bombed, the director of Luba’s care home helped to get her to the Polish border where Irina was able to rescue her and bring her back to the UK.

Luba has dementia and doesn’t speak English and so Irina had to give up her job to be her mother’s full-time carer. Together they started attending two local dementia friendly groups in early June. At one group in Great Stukeley, Love to Move deliverer Jane Thomas was delivering a Love to Move taster session.

Jane told us “Initially whilst we had music on and were playing board games, Luba burst into a Ukrainian song and we all swayed and moved to the music with her which she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. Luba engaged with the Love to Move programme from the very first time she joined in and so has also been coming along each week to the Brampton Love to Move group.”

Jane and Irina have been working together to engage Luba even more in the sessions by playing Ukrainian songs and looking to include the Russian alphabet. Irina told us that she doesn’t have to translate many instructions to Luba during the session, as she is very happy joining in and copying Jane.

Jane continued “Despite the music not always being familiar, Luba always looks so happy and copies my actions all the way through the session, sometimes laughing out loud. Luba always repeats a few words to us in Russian after the session, Irina has translated to us that she is saying thank you and telling us we are all lovely people.”

---

Could you help us to deliver Love to Move in Ukrainian?

We are looking for anyone who speaks Ukrainian and would like to train as a deliverer so we can offer an adapted Love to Move programme via zoom for anyone in need.

If you think this is you please email our team at [email protected]

You can find out more about our Love to Move sessions and how they are helping people like Luba living with dementia by clicking here to visit our Love to Move page here

We are excited to announce that Two-time Olympian Kristian Thomas will be running the TCS London Marathon on 2nd October 2022 for us and fundraising for our lifechanging programmes.

As our Foundation Ambassador, Kristian is excited by the challenge, because the money raised will help transform the lives of those most in need through the sport he loves.

Speaking about why he wanted to take part, Kristian said: “The main reason is my previous work with the Foundation – especially the Love to Move programme. I’ve always worked closely with the Foundation so first and foremost it’s to fundraise for them and promote the good work they do.

“For me personally though, I’m always up for a new challenge or a new target. I’m not an endurance athlete but I love a goal to work towards.”

With less than three months to go until the marathon takes place on the 2nd October, we’ll be providing updates on Kristian’s training, to see how his preparations are going ahead of the big day.

Patrick Bonner, Head of the British Gymnastics Foundation, said: “We’re delighted to have Kristian on board to help raise funds for the charity, so that we can transform more people’s lives through the sport.

“Kristian has been a strong advocate of the charity and became one of our Love to Move ambassadors when the programme was launched. We’re so pleased he’s taking on the challenge, and we’ll be right behind him all the way!”

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish Kristian the best of luck in his preparations.