War comes to schools

The war in Ukraine is spilling over into the schools. Students have dipped into their pockets to make a donation while colleagues have contributed to help one of their party to repatriate his family.

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“It made the war super tangible,” says Nadège St-Amour, about the moment she learned that one of her colleagues of Ukrainian origin was looking for a plane ticket to repatriate his family.

She is one of the core employees of Notre-Dame-des-Rapides elementary school, in LaSalle, who managed the feat of raising nearly $5,000 in less than 24 hours at the end of February.

A second school in the neighborhood, John-F.-Kennedy, also raised some $2,500 in 48 hours.

This colleague is Oleg Koleboshyn, 43, a special education technician. The Journal spoke to him on Monday while he was in Romania.

“It touched me and it helped us a lot,” he says of the financial assistance provided. “I feel even more united with my team.”

paperwork task

He arrived in Quebec with his family in 2010. His parents and two brothers still live in Odessa, Ukraine.

They finally decided to stay there, but Mr. Koleboshyn was able to join his mother-in-law and a childhood friend who managed to cross the border. They have both received confirmation that they will be able to come to Canada.

“I haven’t cried since I was young, but now I’m crying for Ukraine. I don’t normally crown, but here I crown because of the paperwork.

In the meantime, he estimates that he has helped about fifty Ukrainians to translate and fill out the forms, in addition to helping them financially to find accommodation in the city of Bucharest, overcrowded with refugees.

“Knowing Oleg, he would have just loaded his credit card to be able to help more people,” suspects teacher Samuel Jutras.

During this time, the members of the school staff divided up his tasks so as to make up for his absence, another way of contributing to his mission.

“We are a little powerless in the face of [la guerre], but it is the contribution that we can make”, admits Natasha Bouchard, the director of the establishment. “The day he will land here, our involvement will not stop,” she says.

A small $3.45

At Louis-St-Laurent school in Compton in the Eastern Townships, teachers got together to collect donations for the Red Cross. A letter was sent to parents and as of Monday, over $2400 had been raised.

“We realized that we had gifts that came from the students themselves,” says teacher Caroline Goulet. “When we had $3.45, it came from [tirelires en] little pigs, money received on birthdays or doing odd jobs.”

No choice to approach the war in class

Several teachers have decided to address the war in Ukraine in class, either to calm the anxieties of the students or because the subject imposed itself.

Michel Laforge’s Friday science class normally ends at 4 p.m. On the day the invasion broke out, the students stayed until 6 p.m. Shocked

“Everyone was in shock,” says the man who teaches at Marie-Anne school in Montreal. “It was spontaneous. It was the students who started talking.

This school welcomes young people aged 16 to 22 who wish to complete their secondary education. Virtually all of its students are of immigrant background. Many have themselves been refugees.

“They saw the war. There, they relive the war”, says Mr. Laforge about the events in Ukraine.

A student from the Maghreb even said that her whole village was dead, he illustrates.

In the end, he believes that this discussion transformed into “catharsis” did them good, in addition to having a positive impact on the group dynamics.

Sensitive subject

“Are we going to die? Are we going to be affected”, are among the questions to which the 6th grade teacher Nadège St-Amour had to answer. “They are aware that something abnormal is happening.”

In Laval, the service center notably sent a newsletter to parents with some guidelines on how to approach the sensitive subject of war with children.

“I think it reassures them to understand,” observes Caroline Goulet, who teaches 3rd and 4th grades. “They saw images on television and did not understand why it was happening. It touches them, they see children who are suffering.”

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