News & Events

Cross-country tour bringing awareness to Ukrainian famine stops in Winnipeg

December 21, 2022

October 30, 2022 from City News – Winnipeg.

A mobile classroom on wheels is part of the national awareness tour teaching Canadians about the Holodomor.

It examines how Russia and the Soviet Union have used hunger as a weapon against Ukraine.

The mobile bus was in Winnipeg from Thursday to Sunday – parked outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

“What happened in the past can and is happening today,” said Roma Dzerowicz, the manager of the Holodomor National Awareness Tour.

In 1932 and 1933, Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin ordered food seizures aimed at starving Ukrainian peasantry, resulting in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.

Dzerowicz says this act by Stalin was to eradicate, insubordinate, and squash independence and freedom from the Ukrainian people – a genocide which was denied and kept secret for decades.

Cross-Canada Ukraine Famine Awareness Trip Stops in Winnipeg – Winnipeg Free Press

October 28, 2022 from Canada Today – Manitoba News.

A mobile classroom traveling across Canada to educate people about the Holodomor famine in Ukraine has stopped in Winnipeg.

The Holodomor National Awareness Tour bus will present more than 20 different documentaries and educational activities for youth detailing the man-made famine that killed millions in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933.

The bus is sometimes used for school performances, but has been parked outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights since Thursday and is open to the public through Sunday.

Cross-Canada Ukrainian-famine awareness tour stops in Winnipeg

October 28, 2022 from the Free Press.

A mobile classroom that travels across Canada to teach people about the Holodomor famine in Ukraine has made a stop in Winnipeg.

The Holodomor National Awareness Tour bus presents more than 20 different documentary videos, along with educational activities for youth that outline the man-made famine, which killed millions in Soviet Ukraine from 1932-33.

The bus is sometimes used for school presentations, but it has been parted outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights since Thursday, and is open to all through Sunday.

Mobile classroom on historic Ukrainian famine to stop in Kingston

July 15, 2022 from the Kingston Whig Standard.

A travelling classroom will give Kingston the opportunity to learn about the Holodomor famine, a Soviet-manufactured tragedy that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s and which holds significance for Russian-Ukrainian relations today.

The Holodomor Mobile Classroom, housed inside a modified coach bus, will be making a stop at Kingston East Community Centre on Monday, July 18, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is free for anyone to attend.

“The Holodomor is a tragedy too often overlooked or outright unknown to Westerners,” Jake Miller, a librarian of adult programming at Kingston Frontenac Public Library, said. “Learning about this event and its impact on the Ukrainian nation’s relations with Russia is not only timely but essential to understanding their turbulent historical relationship. Knowledge can lead to understanding, understanding to empathy and, hopefully, empathy to peace.”

Visitors will learn about the Holodomor famine, its lasting impact on Ukraine and its repercussions for Canadian farmers and Canadian-Ukrainians, while bringing to the forefront “the values of human rights, equality and social justice”.

The Canada-Ukraine Foundation’s Holodomor National Awareness Tour has sent the mobile classroom from coast to coast with the goal of educating about “the consequences of hate, bullying, discrimination and intolerance through the lens of the Holodomor genocide.”

Tour stop at Glanmore teaches history of Ukrainian genocide, more

July 14, 2022 from the Belleville Intelligencer.

Grim reminders of the past and warning for the present and future will be on display this weekend at a Belleville museum.

The Holodomor National Awareness Tour mobile classroom spent Thursday at Belleville’s Glanmore National Historic Site and returns Saturday and Sunday. It’s essentially a tiny theatre in a recreational vehicle.

“We teach students about a past event that is unknown and why it is important,” said Roma Dzerowicz, a project manager with the tour.

Between 1932 and 1933, dictator Joseph Stalin of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (led by Russia) aimed to end Ukrainian nationalism while industrializing the U.S.S.R.’s economy.

The Soviets set extremely high grain quotas for Ukrainian villages, then profited by selling the grain to other nations, the tour explains. Ukrainians couldn’t meet the quotas and police took all other food.