FOR LOVE OF UKRAINE

The Catholic Charities agencies working with Ukrainians each have strong existing immigration programs in cities where many Ukrainians resettled after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Ukraine declared independence. That makes these regions logical landing places for civilians fleeing the ongoing Russian military onslaught.

The Ukrainian resettlement services offered by the various agencies all aim to provide stability and independence through workforce development and job placement programs; English language classes; assistance enrolling children in school and signing families up for Social Security and health insurance; care for emotional trauma; and other services to help families and individuals adjust to their new lives.

Catholic Charities Diocese of Cleveland, for instance, is participating in a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops-funded program called Welcome Circles, in which parishes are actively recruited to sponsor new families. Four cities were chosen, each with a goal of recruiting 20 parishes for 20 families. Cleveland had already recruited 15 by late spring, and four had received families.

“It’s a leap of faith, for families and parishioners,” says Heath Rosenberger, director of the agency’s migration and refugee services, which has been resettling immigrants since 1948. With a staff of 65, “our focus is on short-term and long-term goals. Self-sufficiency as soon as possible, then we help people get to where they want to be.”

Support in Northeast Ohio has been overwhelming, says Rosenberger, and not just from the longtime Ukrainian population. “Folks are really putting down roots, working hard, starting businesses. It’s been beneficial to the community.”

But even as the presence of long-settled Ukrainians can make the transition – both culturally and practically – go more smoothly for new arrivals, it doesn’t guarantee it will make it easy, for the new arrivals or the staff working with them.

Take Catholic Social Services (CSS) in Anchorage. With deep ties to the Slavic community in Alaska, the agency is working almost entirely with family sponsors for the 598 Ukrainians it resettled in FY2022. For an agency that typically resettles about 130 new arrivals per year, it was a significant increase that meant working with new partners, fostering strong connections with the Ukrainian community and creating new, innovative programming.

As the only resettlement agency in the state, the territory it covers is vast, including urban hubs like Anchorage and Juneau as well as outposts such as the Mat-Su Valley and Delta Junction, which had a population of 1,000 before receiving 100 Ukrainians last year.

A point of friction in Alaska, says Issa Spatrisano, CSS state refugee coordinator, is that the friends and families who came to Alaska in the 1990s left a very different country behind, one just emerging from longtime communist rule, and came to a state whose oil economy was booming and where jobs and housing were plentiful. Things have changed dramatically since then, in both places.

“There are very different lived experiences among families who’ve lived very different lives, from the country they left to the experience of resettlement,” says Spatrisano, who has worked in refugee services for 12 years, mostly with CSS. Buy-in from both groups is important if the program is to be successful. “In the marriage between the two worlds, we’ve found cohesion. It’s a work in progress to use the cultural strength of our communities.”

A successful partnership with the Anchorage Community Land Trust, for instance, has led to a small business startup class where ideas ranging from a bakery to construction contracting can incubate and perhaps take off.

“We’re trying to find creative approaches because people want to stay and put down roots, so we want them to understand the rules and laws governing business ownership,” says Spatrisano.

She’s confident the welcoming culture in Alaska and its ethos of hard work will lead to success for its newest residents, noting, for instance, that many Ukrainians are skilled in welding and construction.

“I want to talk about what refugees are doing for us. They show up here and contribute skilled labor and talent the country needs,” she says.

“I don’t know how people who come to the U.S. under U4U and who don’t have relatives or friends deal with accommodations,” says Kateryna Huretska, who has lived in New York since 2017, when she arrived as an au pair on an exchange program. She’s since married an American and given birth to her first child, but her heart – and family – were in Ukraine when the war began.

Huretska turned to Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York (CCNY) to help resettle her parents and grandparents. She applied twice as their sponsor and was twice denied, even though her family qualified for the program. Then a friend recommended she reach out to CCNY for assistance; the third time was the charm.

“I feel like such organizations as Catholic Charities are the most important resource for those people,” she says, noting how difficult the paperwork is even for someone accustomed to life in the States. “I would not do even a half of that on my own.”

Huretska now works for CAMBA Inc., a Brooklyn-based social service agency that is helping to resettle Ukrainians, although her work is mostly with French speakers, owing to her French language skills. She also speaks Ukrainian, English, Russian and some Polish.

While all of her clients are immigrants, Huretska has realized a difference that might not have occurred to her when she left Ukraine six years ago. For many immigrants, and certainly for Ukrainians today, “Because of a war, they had to leave. It’s not like they wanted to go,” she says. “They were going with tears.”

Iryna Dovbnya is another Ukrainian who had already been living outside of Ukraine, since 2021. Previously a religious sister who did global fundraising for her congregation, she was most recently working as a religion teacher at a Catholic school in New Jersey. Her parish began receiving Ukrainians, and she found her way to CCNY, where she now directs the Ukrainian response program. Huretska was one of her clients.

Dovbnya's job is similar to that of her peers at Catholic Charities agencies across the country who are working with Ukrainians – helping with documentation, benefits, English classes, financial assistance, health insurance, jobs, getting children enrolled in school. Over 22,000 Ukrainians had arrived in New York City by spring 2023, and CCNY has aided more than 1,200 of them.

“Iryna brings not only professional experience, she’s a very emotionally perceptive person,” says Kelly Agnew-Barajas, director of refugee resettlement at CCNY. The program has staffed up to include 22 people, who both provide services and may also be in need of them, having themselves suffered the trauma of war or of seeing their family experience it. “I’m really concerned for my staff. Our staff are the same people that we are serving.”

The addition of a Ukrainian health coordinator will help to make the program and the network they’re building for clients more sustainable, she says.

The work is exhausting and seemingly never-ending, but for Dovbnya and other Ukrainians, it is also absolutely necessary.

“I call my job my mission. Because first of all, it helps me to co-feel with my compatriots, from the bottom of my heart. I’m not only doing it because of my duties, my responsibilities. I want to do all my best, not to omit any opportunity to help,” she says.