FoundationAnnualReport2022

SEEKING Sanctuary Welcoming a newborn is stressful in the best of circumstances, but for a young couple living in the Ukrainian city of Kyiv, the meaning of stress was elevated to a whole new level when Russia attacked Ukraine just a month after the birth of their first child. Ihar (Igor) Yaskevich, who is from Belarus, and Valeriia Husarieva, a native of Ukraine, met in Kyiv. “It was love at first sight,” remembers 24-year-old Valeriia. “He is the one person I can trust. I can’t imagine life without him.” They settled in Kyiv, married, and had their son Mark in January 2022. Ihar, 27, works in the IT sector and is fluent in English, Ukrainian, French, Russian, and Belarusian. Valeriia is a musician and artist, and they collaborate on songwriting and singing rap and R&B. They pride themselves on creating “completely fresh and raw music that has never been done before,” says Ihar. After Mark was born, he and Valeriia stayed with her parents in her hometown of Zhytomyr, about two hours from Kyiv, because she and Mark needed additional medical care after the baby’s birth. Ihar remained in Kyiv to continue working at his job at an IT company. On February 23, 2022, Ihar received a call from a friend in Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, located near the Russian border, to tell him he had heard Russia would invade Ukraine in the early morning hours of the next day. Ihar called Valeriia to tell her the news of Russia’s impending attack and went to bed, unsure what the next day would bring. He awoke to the sounds of unrelenting shelling and people screaming. “I knew something was going to happen, but not this. Not people dying and the constant shelling and bombing.” Ihar and Valeriia quickly made plans for Valeriia and Mark to make the eight-and-a-half-hour journey from Zhytomyr to Warsaw, Poland, where Ihar’s younger brother lives. Once she had safely escaped from Ukraine to Poland, she and Mark flew to Spain to stay with her older sister. 21