Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Alona will recount how she escaped Ukraine two weeks after Russia invaded her country. She fled with her two teenage boys from Dnipro to Kyiv where she had to make several arduous trips by train to Poland to arrange for visas under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET) program which is one of the many special measures the Government of Canada has introduced to support the people of Ukraine. It offers Ukrainians and their family members free, extended temporary status and allows them to work, study, and stay in Canada until it is safe for them to return home. Once authorization was obtained, she and her sons were bused to France where arrangements were made for her family to come and settle in Lethbridge with the help of Lethbridge’s Project Sunflower Aid Society. Speaker:   Alona Sinchuk        Moderator: Mark Goettel Alona was born in Vinnytsia Ukraine and lived in several cities before settling in Dnipro. She has two teenage boys, Stepan, 14, and Arsenii, 12.    She obtained a degree