A Little Good News by Jana Richards

The news coming out of Ukraine has been so scary and so dark that I wanted to tell a story with a happy ending that I read about in the Winnipeg Free Press. It’s a story that ties a man living in Ukraine with high school students here in my city.

Karen Robb had been looking for her birth father for over thirty years. She finally made contact with him two years ago. Gary Milani, 73, is a Canadian who has been living in eastern Europe for over twenty years and is married to a Ukrainian woman. Karen found him in Kyiv, and she says the first time she actually spoke to him on the phone, she heard “bombs and machine guns outside of his window.” 

Karen tried to convince Gary to leave Kyiv. He was initially reluctant. His wife had left earlier to find work in Italy, but if he was going to flee, he wanted his other daughter in Kyiv to leave with him. Once Gary made the decision to leave, the difficulty of getting safely to the train station became a stumbling block. 

That’s when Karen, an educational assistant at a Winnipeg high school, turned to the geography class. She thought maybe the students “who are a bunch of whiz kids with tech devices, might be able to help.” Social studies teacher Regan Moses, who has a Stand with Ukraine sign in her classroom, was all for it. She was keen to help her colleague and give her students a problem-solving lesson using their mapping skills. 

Initially, Gary wanted to walk to his daughter’s house so they could continue the trek together to the train station. From there they would board a train to Lviv. But when the students checked satellite imagery, Google Maps, and social media to check the route, they discovered it would take Gary into the path of a Russian convoy. 

So, using these online resources, they mapped unobstructed routes for Gary and his daughter to take separately to get to the train station. One of the students, Inga, moved to Winnipeg from Ukraine in 2017, and with her knowledge of the language, she was able to monitor Ukrainian social media and news sites.  By phone, they relayed the route information to Gary so he could get the map clear in his mind. 

Equipped with this knowledge, Gary headed out. The first time he ventured out, police turned him away at a checkpoint because of debris on the roads. Undeterred, he tried again the next day and this time he was able to make it to the train station where he was reunited with his family. 

But there was a panicked 45 minutes at the high school in Winnipeg when Inga read Ukrainian media accounts of a bombing at the Kyiv train station. Finally, Gary called to say he and his family were okay, despite being no more than fourteen feet away from the blast. The bombing caused the train to be delayed, but they eventually boarded and made it to Lviv. Karen subsequently heard from Gary when he and his family safely reached Krakow, Poland. They plan to eventually go to Italy to be reunited with Gary’s wife.

The mapping project provided the geography students with a concrete way to help. Inga is worried about her family still in Ukraine and is doing everything she can to help. The geography class has partnered with the student council and the Amnesty International club to fundraise by selling perogies and pins. 

Teacher Regan Moses says that even though the world looks very dark right now, when she looks at the students in her class, “I’m assured that we’re going to be okay.”

Well done, students! You give me hope.