Meet Canadian Zenia Kushpeta.
Nationality: Canadian
Age: 60
Length of time in Ukraine: Traveling between Canada and Ukraine for 20 years. Position: Founder of several non-profit organizations, including the Lviv-based Dzherelo Rehabilitation Center and Ukraine representative for the international non-profit group, L’Arche.
Tips for succeeding in Ukraine: “Take the time to listen to people’s personal stories in order to make deeper connections with them, allowing ourselves to be surprised by how much we have in common
A decision made by Zenia Kushpeta more than two decades ago to follow her heart and largely abandon a comfortable life in the West has changed the lives of thousands of people with special needs in Ukraine.
Over the last two decades, Ukrainian-Canadian Kushpeta has helped establish four Ukrainian non-profit groups dedicated to bettering the lives of individuals afflicted by cerebral palsy, autism, Down Syndrome and other maladies.
Kushpeta has gained widespread recognition for her efforts. More importantly, however, the organizations she has helped found have become a model for other similar groups taking root in Ukraine, paving a way for a more civil society. Kushpeta’s work has also proven to be a reminder that the Ukrainian diaspora can be an important resource when it supports causes it believes to be morally right.
Kushpeta’s journey began when she was hitting her forties and realized she wanted something different in life. An accomplished concert pianist and academic, Kushpeta decided to dedicate an academic year to helping individuals with special needs.
“I thought about Africa, India,” she said.
As she contacted organizations, however, she was told that as a musician she had no special skills that would be useful to the needs of developing nations. All the organizations she turned to wanted doctors and nurses. So Kushpeta began to research groups where no special training was necessary. She found a local chapter of an international organization called L’Arche near her home in Ontario, a Canadian province.
Established in 1964 in France, L’Arche operated homes, programs, and support networks for people with developmental disabilities worldwide. Kushpeta ended up living with a woman named Rosie with physical and intellectual handicaps for a year. That experience proved instrumental.
“This changed me,” she said. “I thought, ‘How much do we have to learn from them?’ This was a new world for me.”
After that year, Kushpeta went back to teaching and performing. By 1991, however, she had set her sights on Ukraine. Although she had continued working with L’Arche in Canada, Kushpeta asked if she could volunteer in Ukraine since the organization had no special representative there. Uncertain how Kushpeta, who had been active in Canada’s Ukrainian community but had never visited her ancestral homeland, would fare there, the organization suggested a journey of two weeks. Kushpeta arrived in Kyiv in July 1991 and was hooked.
“I looked at that sky in Kyiv and I understood this is mine,” she said. “For this is what I was born.”
Ukraine’s independence, won just a month after Kushpeta’s visit, held the promise of new opportunities. She asked L’arche if she could return to the country for a longer stay, and in 1992 committed herself to spending a year in-country. Since then, Kushpeta has shuttled back and forth between Ukraine and Canada, garnering financial and moral support for the organizations she has helped found.
The best-known organization she has been associated with is the Dzherelo Children’s Rehabilitation Centre in Lviv. Founded by three Ukrainians and Kushpeta, the center helps children with cerebral palsy, autism and Down Syndrome who need physical rehabilitation and social integration. Kushpeta has managed to garner significant support from Canada’s Ukrainian community for the center.
Other initiatives include “Faith and Light.” A Christian movement established in 1971, “Faith and Light” supports people with developmental disabilities and their families by giving them forums to meet regularly. These include workshops, summer camps, retreats and pilgrimages. Today there are 32 “Faith and Light” communities in 15 cities in Ukraine. Diaspora Ukrainians have donated monies for cars and other necessities.
Perhaps one of Kushpeta’s most lasting legacies will be efforts for those with special needs to find a spiritual home at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University. As its founder and former director, Kushpeta had for a decade headed the university’s Emmaus Center, which provides spiritual support for people with special needs, an effort supported by university rector Rev. Borys Gudziak.
On a recent fundraising trip to Toronto, Gudziak announced individuals with special needs would also have a physical home at the university’s new campus, which is currently under construction. Some housing would be allocated for individuals with special needs. The hope is that by living side-by-side with these individuals, students will gain a greater appreciation and respect for those with disabilities.
“We all have some defect,” Kushpeta said. “They aren’t sick or invalids. They are different, with different gifts.”
Natalia A. Feduschak can be reached at [email protected].
