The event, co-organized by the Newcomers Center and the Ukrainian Orthodox Sobor of St. Vladimir, proved successful for both job seekers and employers. “It’s fantastic. The attendance is amazing,” said Kelly Ernst, vice president of vulnerable populations at the Center for Newcomers. He said more than 400 new entrants and 30 employers attended the event. “The interaction going on inside right now is just overwhelmingly amazing,” Ernst said. The event was aimed at helping Ukrainian newcomers to Calgary find jobs ranging from office management to retail. For some adult immigrants such as Olha Akhmedova, who has only been in Canada for a month, one of the biggest barriers to finding work in Calgary is the language barrier. There is also the issue of the need to take years of study again. Olha Akhmedova worked as a nurse in Ukraine for more than 20 years before coming to Canada. (Nick Brizuela / CBC) Back in Kyiv, Akhmedova was a head nurse with more than 20 years of experience. However, due to differences between the education systems here and in Ukraine, Akhmedova is not qualified to work as a nurse in Canada. “She still wants to keep doing her job, but obviously she can’t,” Akhmedova told an interpreter. “She can’t study for an extra seven years. So she’re just trying to find something else for herself right now. But she could contribute as a nurse.”
A Long Road to Canada
Although the current situation for many Ukrainians is stifled, the newcomer Hanna Chepurda from Kyiv is optimistic about the future. Chepurda attended the job fair on Saturday in search of an office position. Chepurda said she worked as an economist for about seven years before being forced to leave her country. “It was a difficult way to leave Ukraine,” he said. Chepurda said she left home in early March and traveled to several European countries – Romania, Poland, Austria and Ireland – before arriving in Calgary. Hanna Chepurda, a Ukrainian newcomer to Canada, attended a job fair at the Ukrainian Orthodox Sobor in St. Vladimir on Saturday in search of office work. (Nick Brizuela / CBC) Although she is now here in Canada, Chepurda said she hopes to be reunited with her family in Ukraine when better times come. “I dream about it because I miss them so much.”
Successful event for employers
Cole Millen, general manager at Sheraton Suites Calgary Eau Claire, said the job fair was very successful. “The turnout was huge. It was a small attack honestly,” he said. Millen said Sheraton hired 12 new attendants and an agent at the front desk at the job fair. He said English language skills are not a huge obstacle for some jobs, such as hotel room clerk, as basic communication is all that is needed. “A willingness to work, a positive attitude, a good smile will make you very, very far away with us,” Millen said. More than 400 newcomers attended the Ukrainian job fair in Calgary on Saturday. (Nick Brizuela / CBC) The success of the job fair went beyond simply providing jobs to newcomers, according to Millen. “It’s obviously a terrible tragedy that many of these people have had to deal with, and so if we can help them land and settle in Calgary, we’m very happy to be able to do that.”
