A year after fleeing the war, Ukrainian mother and daughter settle into small-town N.W.T.
CBC
Solomiia Demianova struggled when she started kindergarten in Fort Simpson, N.W.T.
"First when I get here, I cry because I didn't know how to speak English," she said.
Her mom, Varvara Mnatsakanian, wrote phrases like "I want to drink" on Solomiia's palm to show her teachers.
Now, Solomiia, 6, can have full conversations in English.
The mother and daughter pair have called Fort Simpson home for the past year after fleeing the war in Ukraine.
They had help locally from the community's pharmacist, Andrew Panshyn.
Panshyn knew Mnatsakanian from their university days in Kyiv — he's also Solomiia's godfather.
Panshyn said he still gets goosebumps when he thinks back to the first time he heard about explosions in Kyiv last year.
In the early days of the conflict, he felt like he couldn't just watch what was happening in his home country.
"To stay in shock or to be afraid, it's not productive," he said. "We need to be productive to win this war. So I started thinking, 'How can I help here? What can I do?'"
He contacted Mnatsakanian and explained that if she made it to the Polish border, he'd be able to help.
From there, Panshyn and Mnatsakanian worked through Canada's fast-track program for Ukrainian refugees.
Canada has taken in more than 200,000 Ukrainians.
It took about a month and a half, but finally Mnatsakanian and Solomiia arrived in April last year.