Ukrainian family that fled Russian invasion say more support needed in Ontario
CBC
Sandy Tarasenko's cellphone rings multiple times a day, each time bringing her vital news from home.
Her husband in still in Ukraine.
She called him briefly Thursday afternoon using WhatsApp and he appeared on screen wearing an olive green shirt and wiping his face in exhaustion. A few seconds later, the call dropped.
"He has to call me four times a day and say 'I'm fine. I'm alive,'" she said. "They all are in danger."
Standing near a schoolyard in Burlington, Ont., with kids running around in the sunshine and laughing as they played, Tarasenko's mind was on her home city of Kyiv, loved ones left behind and how to create a life in the country she's fled to.
The 39-year-old and her children — ages 11, 9 and 3— are in Canada now, arriving just over a week ago, but she says she's been struck by a lack of supports for Ukrainians being offered in Ontario.
"Ukrainian people are hard workers. It's not like we want to come and watch TV all day long until the end of the war," she said.
"We are ready to do anything, we just need somebody to lead us and to help with first steps."
On the morning of Feb. 24, her family looked out the window of their home in Kyiv to see explosions rocking the city.
She left with her three children and a friend named Victoria Perro that same night, crossing the border into Hungary and travelling across Europe in search of safety. Her husband, like many Ukrainian men, stayed behind.
They spent 17 days in Vienna and just over a day in Paris, before flying to Canada — travel arranged with the help of friends here. They arrived in Toronto on March 24, a month after the war began.
But Tarasenko told CBC Hamilton her family's arrival in Canada has been complicated and difficult.
"I packed my luggage in 10 minutes," she said. "People come very shocked, very shocked. They don't prepare much money. Sometimes even without a toothbrush."
In Europe there were volunteers at train stations, airports and the border, who were ready to help with accommodation, food, financial support and even school for her children.
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