Speaker This Past Week - Orysia Boychuk

On Thursday, June 15th the Nisku Leduc Rotary Club welcomed the President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Alberta Provincial Council, Orysia Boychuk to speak at our morning breakfast. 

 

Since the brutal invasion by Russia on Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians have been displaced by the war. Ukrainian Canadian Congress - Alberta Provincial Council (UCC-APC) is playing a significant role in helping Ukrainians settle in Alberta.  The Congress has been supporting newcomers with emergency housing, food, supporting with job fairs, survival English classes and much more.  President of UCC-APC, Orysia Boychuk spoke in detail about the current and future needs of displaced Ukrainian newcomers.

 

1.2 Million Ukrainians have applied to come to Canada which is an extraordinary number that no one is ready for. The Ukrainian immigrants are applying under the CUAET program through the federal government which is only a 3 year program, which is essentially a travel visa program and they qualify to have their passports stamped when they arrive in Canada so they can start work immediately. 720,000 immigrants have been approved so far to come to Canada, 170,000 have arrived and 36,000 have settled in Alberta in the last year. 

 

As these immigrants arrive in Canada under this particular program they are not afforded the same benefits that would apply to refugees. Incoming refugees are met at the airport, given housing, income support, English lessons and numerous other benefits for at least one year and sometimes up to 18 months. The Ukrainians are offered nothing in terms of support other than they get the benefit of being able to start work immediately. The biggest challenges for the Ukrainians are is that they need to find a place to live before they can start a job. The next major hurdle is that most of them know very little English making it difficult for them to get jobs and to complete required safety courses etc. The other important documents they need right away are their social insurance numbers and apply for Alberta Health Care.

 

The UCC-ACP in the past year has supported the Ukrainian immigrants with medical help, education programs and survival English programs that are offered online, Saturday morning classes and Thursday night classes. Normally it would take the immigrants 4-6 months to get into the normal English classes so the classes that the UCC offer are invaluable to them.

 

The UCC-ACP in Alberta, a non-profit organization has been in existence for over 50 years and over 80 years as a National body. The UCC is taking on a leading role to take in the Ukrainian people and in a short period of time they have gone from 1 admin person, 1 phone line and 1 computer to 10 admin staff, 4 phone lines and 10 computers! They have established a bi-lingual website to provide trusted information for all to access.

 

As soon as the war broke out the UCC-ACP responded with the 4 pillars within their organization which was to provide emergency housing, food, English classes and employment to the incoming displaced immigrants. As employment is critical to the incoming immigrants, the UCC-ACP has been holding Job Fairs and have attracted 30-35 employers looking for employees and typically have anywhere from 700-1000 people looking for and needing work at each job fair. The feedback according to Orysia is that the Ukrainians are very hard workers. Another issue is that a lot of the immigrants are professionals in one degree or another but their credentials and accreditations are not recognized in Canada. The UCC-ACP is advocating on their behalf to have the governments recognize these skills. 

 

In the last while the Federal and the Alberta government has stepped to help in a small way by each providing 25 hotel rooms (total of 50) for a maximum of 2 weeks while the people try to find full time accommodations and jobs as the local and provincial hosting program was already at capacity. The UCC-ACP have also recently received some grants to operate a welcome booth at the Edmonton airport to welcome the incoming Ukrainian newcomers.

 

Last year the Boilermakers Lodge over on 152nd Street and 114th Avenue in Edmonton have donated 20,000 sq. ft of space to handle and warehouse all the incoming furniture donations. The Ukrainian people can come and pick up enough furniture to furnish their first homes. They are seeing 400 newcomers a month come through the furniture warehouse and since last April, they have had over 4 million dollars worth of donated furniture come and go through its doors. Orysia made the plea that if anyone or you know of anyone that has unneeded gently used furniture due to downsizing or just not required anymore, please, please, please bring it to the warehouse for donation.

 

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress - Alberta Provincial Council is working very hard to provide the displaced immigrants with as much help as they can provide. They have been hosting rallies in Edmonton and Calgary weekly to help keep the issues upfront with the public and the governments. In closing, these folks need our help and are constantly looking for volunteers to host the newcomers and help them get settled and situated as soon as possible.

 

Orysia is looking for more people and groups to talk to to help spread the word about the plight of the Ukrainian people. If you happen to know of any such group, Orysia would love to hear from you by contacting the UCC office at 780-414-1624 or info@uccab.ca

 

In closing, Treasurer Kasey Kozicky presented Orysia with a cheque for $2000.00 to the UCC to help with expenses and a promise of more to come from the Nisku-Leduc Rotary Club.

 

I apologize for the long story but of all the presentations we heard this year, this one hit home for me. I have tried to convey the story in the best detail for the members that were unable to attend this breakfast. Thank you to Orysia Boychuk for the very informative and eye-opening presentation!

 

For more information on the UCC-APC go to their website at https://www.uccab.ca/