Canada helps Ukrainian families

Hi,

 

We are Kostyantyn Khomutov and Solon Angel — we want your help in raising money for families of friends and colleagues in the process of evacuating Ukraine.

 

We're both immigrants and serial entrepreneurs in Ottawa, Canada, solving complex problems in CleanTech and FinTech industries. Two weeks ago, the world turned upside down for citizens of Ukraine. We immediately wiped our calendars and went to work helping Ukrainians flee to safety. After many sleepless nights and stressful days, the logistics have been resolved and we're taking real action.

 

We're both immigrants. Kostyantyn is of Ukrainian origin, born in Okhtyrka, Sumy Region, a small town of 50K people that's now bombarded with some of the most devastating vacuum bombs. Solon is a three-time immigrant, and the mother of his children fled the former Yugoslavia, a country already devastated by war. We know the stress of immigrants and even more so those leaving unplanned with only a few hours to pack.

 

The days and weeks unfolding now are crucial to minimize the long-term trauma of war crisis on these families, and crisis centres are not always providing the needed safety when kids are involved.

 

We've been on the phone, navigating Ukrainians fleeing to safety by car, train or foot. We engaged all our friends and resources we had at our disposal. Currently, we've helped 15 adults and 7 kids leave Ukraine, with 7 more adults and 5 more kids en route. We've donated thousands of dollars and committed our own homes in Canada, if need be.

 

However, we understand the crucial need for refugees to have a roof over their heads with common basic necessities for their children to be safe, while trying to resettle in a new country. Some may even start thinking about their kids going back to school. It seems nearly impossible for them today and we need to provide financial assistance beyond what we can do ourselves to make this a reality. We helped these brave families flee to immediate safety but our donations and resources aren't sufficient to help them cross the ocean to settle in Canada.

 

We're committed to ensuring all proceeds go to sponsor families. We'll lean on our networks to help them find housing, common basic necessities, jobs, and integration into local communities, in the safest possible way. We're committing a significant portion of our weeks to this for the months to come. We have disengaged from various professional / volunteer commitments for the time being to do everything we can to help these citizens.

 

If it wasn't for Сanada welcoming us, our thriving businesses would not be hiring dozens of people today in Сanada. We know that these families, devastated by war, will do something positive out of our help, like a future child starting their own business as so many immigrants do, and creating many jobs for others.

 

We really appreciate your help as we plan to have as many of these families in stable homes, able to send their kids to school after summer, ideally in Canada.