Raising funds to transfer to WI - Odessa, Ukraine

Dear reader,

 

Thank you so much for visiting this page with a potential wish to help raise money to help the families in Ukraine. The days of today are very hard. We do all we can to help those, who fight daily at this very moment for their life, their children, and their place to live in.

 

My name is Juliana Popovich , I am a mother of two, I am 40. I believe that we can make a change by creating a wonderful show to raise money for those who stayed to fight, to feed the soldiers, to rescue people from inside the Ukraine, even when under a daily life-threatening attack.

 

On Thursday, April 28th, 2022, I'm organizing a Dance Show - a Bellydance Show to raise funds to help an organization called Woman Insight , located in Odessa, Ukraine. Woman Insight is an organization that is devoted to develop and support women's physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. They are working 13 years already and I joined thousands of women around the globe in March 2021 by taking their coaching programs and courses to help my emotional and mental health, for my family health. My life and health turned 180 degrees since then, they were the anchor for me and many others, and now they are still working under the bombs, to support others, still working when attacked.

 

Since the Russian invasion - the war - has started, Woman Insight created a special program named BlagoWI, they work with volunteers in collaboration with Red Cross by donating funds to help refugees with food, shelter, and clothing.

 

The also bought the technical breathing equipment for a local Children Hospital so that they could to do surgeries to children. They also provide food, medication, and daily necessities to hospitals surrounding their city.

 

They help local women to relocate, in their resettlement process, you can see in their Instagram stories photos and daily reports, women relocating to France and other countries.

 

The most important, every single day they cook for Ukranian Soldiers, for the heroes that put their lives to protect their county from this devastating terror... the team is cooking meals with love and gratitude. They call this program Sborni Sili Ukraini. My contact person, Irina Vereitina...she gave me all this information, and I am crying while I am typing it, because I fear for her safety, health, for the entire team, for Ludmila Kerimova, who is a sunlight to so many women who are still there, for Svetlana Kerimova's husband who fought to get back to Ukriane to be able to protect his country and many many others who are there.

 

I apologize for the long post. Mainly:

Woman Insight - with their program in the last month 500 women in Ukraine have began to receive a free support by psychotherapists and coaches to restore their emotional and mental well-being, completely for free.

 

Nevertheless the bombings and cruelty surrounding them, they continue their hard work.

 

Their other location in Kharkiv is already bombed/destroyed.

 

***

 

In March, I gave a call to my dance-colleague Adalat Omar , a beautiful dancer and I asked her to help me to connect to the Hookah Lounge Tea House in a beautiful Port Moody, British Columbia. It's been a while since I wanted to visit this place, but this time, it wasn't for a visit and fortunately Adalat is their in-house dancer since 2012.

 

This time I asked her for a favour. I asked her to introduce me to the place owners, so that I could perhaps create a fundraising show there. Adalat instantly agreed, she even did more, she talked to the Hookah Lounge managers herself, set a meeting for us, they welcomed us with a traditional Turkish coffee and as soon as I told them about my idea of creating a fundraising show - they agreed on the spot to host the event absolutely at no cost to me.

 

It took me only one week to gather all 12 dancers to create a beautiful program I am so looking forward to watch them perform.

 

Here is the link to the Event Page:
Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fundraiser-bellydance-dance-show-hookah-paradiz-lounge-port-moody-bc-tickets-317913185897

Facebook event page:
https://facebook.com/events/s/fundraiser-bellydance-show-a-d/724958332202031/

 

This page is for those, who cannot make it to the event and/or those who simply would like to support me to raise more funds.

100% of the funds go directly to ODESSA, Ukraine - Woman Insight

This is a non-for-profit event, and no one is getting paid to perform at it.

All dancers agreed to dance as a charity.

 

Event details:

Fundraising Bellydance Show

Date: Thursday, April 28th

Doors: 7:00pm

Showtime: 7:30pm-9:30pm

Tickets: $25+s/f (via eventbrite.ca)

Location:

Paradiz Teahouse & Hookah Lounge

99 Moray St, Port Moody, BC V3H 2M2

 

 

My background:

 

I live in a small town named Port Coquitlam, BC, close to Vancouver BC, Canada. I work 24/7 to help landed refugees from Ukraine here in Tri-Cities.

 

Together with Carrie Young and Colleen Amstrong, we help the families with clothes, housing, furniture, and physical help here in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody areas, in fact, not only in our neighbourhood, we get calls even from South Surrey. So far we found 3 housing, clothing for 5 families, found furniture, and we only started about two weeks ago. There are other families, people, and organizations that endlessly help coming refugees. We all believe in humanity and doing our best. So many people are here to help they write to us, donate, do transfers and deliveries, every single day.

 

We also created a group on the website Nextdoor Helping families from Ukraine in our neighborhood. Link: https://ca.nextdoor.com/g/sv9pyq82z/

 

Twelve years ago, my husband and I decided to go through second immigration and move to Canada to study and travel. Within the first days, we knew Canada is our second home.

 

My husband is Ukranian, half of his family is in the forests of Ukraine now, trying to escape the bombing.

 

I thank each and everyone who read, who took part in the event, who performed, who wanted to perform and couldn't, who helped me, who held my hand when I was shaking from fear to run this whole thing, my friends who gave me their place to work in nights, all who supported me, Paradiz Teahouse & Hookah Lounge , and all who were there for me.

 

I thank YOU for reading this story.

 

With love and gratitude,

Warmly,

Juliana