A fundraiser in support of Ukraine saw people in Brooks lining up in support ( submitted photo/Lyuda Makarova )

By Tiffany Goodwein

‘I’m really happy to be here in Brooks’: City rallies behind Ukrainian community

Mar 6, 2022 | 10:02 PM

BROOKS, AB – Hovering over a cellphone these Ukrainians living in Brooks get the latest on what’s happening.

The images of unrest are too difficult to watch.

But yet their cellphone remains the closest communication they have to their families back home.

“The first thing they say is ‘it is very scary, it is bombing it is shooting going on we have to hide in the bomb shelters every 20 minutes, every half an hour,”‘

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29-year-old Ivana Bohutska came to Brooks in 2010 to work at the JBS meat plant.

“For me as a young person it is hard for me to watch the news because I understand that if God didn’t give me the opportunity to come here to Canada at this moment I would be there in Ukraine, living that life that our relatives are living at this moment,” Bohutska said.

Also watching the unrest closely is Lyuda Makarova. Lately, sleep has been hard to come by knowing what is going on back home.

“My mom and my sister-in-law, and their two kids they are staying in a safe place but my brother is fighting,” she said.

Natalia Ogeinko views the war as an attack not only on Ukraine but on western values. Her mother is a doctor in eastern Ukraine, in an area not as hard hit by the Russian forces.

“Doctors are working overtime, partially because some of the women and children have decided to leave so the hospitals are understaffed because of that plus, they have an influx of people moving from other regions fleeing that also need medical attention,” she said.

The UN estimates nearly 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine, the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since the second world war.

In Brooks, the terrors of the war, have been felt across the city. On Sunday a fundraiser that was held in support of Ukraine sold out within the hour and over $11,000 was raised.

The support, the women say, is a huge comfort as their homeland remains in peril.

“When we decided to do this (the fundraiser) we had lots of calls, saying ‘how can we help? Especially with Canadians, they were helping us to cook they were helping us to bake some stuff, and they are just donating their time. I’m really happy to be here in Brooks,” Makarova said.