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An Oral History of Hosting Ukrainian Newcomers in Wartime
Sharing Home is a graduate student-led oral history project documenting the stories of Edmontonians who opened their homes to Ukrainian newcomers since 2022.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many Ukrainians have found it necessary to leave their country in search of safety and security.
Between the introduction of the Canada–Ukraine Authorization of Emergency Travel (CUAET) and December 2023, 210,000 Ukrainian nationals had arrived in Canada.
Of those who came to Alberta, almost two thirds have settled in Edmonton.
The federal government has funded emergency accommodations in hotel rooms for those who arrive without immediately accessible housing, but this support only lasts two weeks, which has proved to be insufficient time for many individuals and families struggling to adapt to a new country.
In response to this need for longer term housing, many Albertans have opened their homes to Ukrainian displaced persons. Not only Ukrainian Canadians, but Edmontonians from a variety of cultural and national backgrounds have reached out to help.
We want to document their stories.
Over the course of four months, we have created this oral history project, Sharing Home, to collect and ultimately present the stories of Edmontonian hosts of Ukrainian newcomers who have opened their homes to near-strangers since 2022. Our goal is to gather these inspiring, joyful, harrowing, difficult, heart-warming, and life-changing stories in order to offer this yet-untold history to the public.
We hope that, by exploring the desire to help these seeming outsiders to the community in need, we can identify ways that Canadians could be mobilized to support displaced persons and refugees fleeing this and other crises, now and in the future.
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