Saskatoon Ukrainian school welcomes students escaping war in Ukraine
Bishop Filevich Ukrainian Bilingual School says community has stepped up with donations
Students at the Ukrainian bilingual Catholic school in Saskatoon are loading up backpacks with pens, notebooks and running shoes for their new classmates — children who fled war-torn Ukraine with their families.
The children are starting over at Bishop Filevich school in the Sutherland neighbourhood. So far, the school has welcomed three students who are in grades 5, 2 and 1, and more are expected to arrive in the coming weeks. In the meantime, donations from the Saskatoon community are pouring in.
"We've been getting so many different things to ensure that these kids can come to us and feel like regular kids.… they are doing extremely well," said Stacia Horbay Ugalde, principal of Bishop Filevich.
"The first girl that came last week, it just kind of sent shivers down [my spine]. It kind of brings tears to my eyes because at the beginning she was quite timid, and by 3:30 when we were loading the bus, she was just like any other student that didn't have any kind of trauma in the background."
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Shannon Martin, head caretaker at Bishop Filevich, said her heart goes out to the children that have had to flee their country.
"It's really tugging at my heart because I know they would have to leave dad or older male siblings back in Ukraine. Like, I can't even imagine," Martin said.
"Seven weeks ago, they were in their own school with their own friends, just living their life. And now they're here starting over again."
A school effort
The school has been very involved since war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in February. At the time, school was closed for February break.
"We have a very high immigrant population here in the building, and so it was a very solemn first day back. Lots of prayers, lots of shoulders to cry on, lots of hugs and lots of listening ears," said Horbay Ugalde.
"We refocused ourselves after a few days of that mourning period and decided to focus on, what can we do here to promote peace? What can we do here to help, to support financially, as well as material or humanitarian aid that we can send. We are linked to different organizations throughout the Ukrainian community."
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Since the war started, the school has collected first aid to send over to Ukraine and has held fundraisers each week.
Horbay Ugalde said the school was not surprised when students from Ukraine began to arrive.
"We knew that — especially when the government opened up those possibilities — that we would be receiving kids. Saskatchewan is a hub of Ukrainians. And so we knew just from our internal families that were bringing people over that we would be getting students," said Horbay Ugalde.
"And apart from families in our building, from the community people were telling us, 'Would you take our kids?' And absolutely with open arms we would wrap our arms around them."
Kateryna Tokarska is a Grade 8 student at Bishop Filevich. She has been helping with fundraising efforts.
"Everyone is being very welcoming and supporting all refugees and immigrants coming."
Tokarska has a lot of family in Ukraine.
"It's been pretty stressful, but we all are trying to stay as optimistic as we can. And right now, our goal is just to help as many people as we can."
She said she will speak Ukrainian to the new students to make them feel "normal."
Martin, who made a Facebook post recently asking for donations to help the Ukrainian refugee effort, said she is blown away by people's generosity.
"I see the families come in and they're so touched, receiving all this stuff. You'll see the moms there, you know, crying. And it's just because they're so grateful and so overwhelmed."
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With files from Saskatoon Morning