Igor Voinoiv

I came to the UK in September 2022 from the war-torn southeastern Ukraine, city of Zaporizhzhia. It was a challenging time for me and my family. Before the war in October 2021, COVID took the life of my father, and then suddenly in February 2022 this terrible cruel war began. Soon after that, my mother-in-law became seriously ill and since in my city, which is located 18 miles from the front line, all hospitals were focused on helping wounded militaries, me and my wife Natasha took care of our mom 24/7 at home, by ourselves, performing all necessary medical care. Unfortunately, we didn’t win that battle and lost our mom and soon after that we came to London with our daughter on a family scheme visa. 

Unfortunately I suffered from a stroke and spent some time in the Hyper Acute Stroke Unit. After I was released from the hospital, I enrolled onto the ESOL classes at WAES. I progressed to Functional English and enrolled onto the Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp.

I’m a retired pilot of a military transport aviation in Ukraine and started to think about finding my career path here in the UK. The world is constantly developing online, I wanted the skills to keep up and build something useful and that has an impact.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the course, but I gained so much confidence in my programming skills. Now, I feel comfortable tackling web development projects on my own. During our learning process, I started to work on my project:  the website which aims to help newcomers to settle in and adjust to life in London, understand local customs, cultures and communities and promote a sense of belonging. I’ve noticed that there is no one place with all the important things newcomers to London want to know like healthcare, transport, money, telephones, schools, homes, affordable shopping freebies, jobs workplace culture, legal help, education centre’s etc. I created a website which is all in one hub at your fingertips for newcomers, a guide to settling in London.  

I continue to study programming in more detail and English and will start my next course next year and actively looking for a job, whilst volunteering at WAES.