Two U of R students share the effects of war in their home countries on their lives and how a new fundraising priority, Project Resilience, will make a difference to students from lands of strife. By Katie Doke Sawatzky
The first thing that struck Zohra Zahir when she came to Regina in 2018 was the clean air and the peaceful atmosphere.
“I've been in huge cities for the past ten years,” she says. “The moment I reached Regina I was like ‘Yes that's the one.' You want some peace; you want beautiful Wascana.”
Zahir is from Herat, Afghanistan, near its border with Iran in the northwest. The daughter of a forensic pathologist, she grew interested in science after reading about stem cells in a magazine one day. Before moving to Canada in 2018, Zahir lived in Delhi, India, for seven years, studying for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental sciences and genetics, respectively.
She left behind six siblings and her parents, who at the time, had already experienced 10 years of Afghanistan’s slow democratization under the influence of the U.S. military. After the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the U.S., the Taliban, a fundamentalist, militant and jihadist government, were driven out of Afghanistan.
“They are trapped in their own country,” says Zahir. “We are all confused and we don't know what will happen like even tomorrow.”
In the years afterwards, Zahir enjoyed a freedom of movement that, particularly for women, was forbidden during Taliban rule. She remembers driving all over with her sisters, witnessing women flock to university and become influential political leaders. She and her eldest sister, now a wind turbine engineer in Germany, went to study and live abroad, leaving their family behind. Zahir’s father was committed to staying in his country, to building a better life for his family in the community he knew. Then in August 2021, Zahir’s second year of doctoral study at the University of Regina, it all changed.
Science doctoral student Zohra Zahir says her home country of Afghanistan is facing an uncertain future.
“They are trapped in their own country,” says Zahir. “We are all confused and we don't know what will happen like even tomorrow.”
When U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan last summer, the democratic, U.S.-supported Afghan government collapsed quickly and the Taliban took over once more.
Now, Zahir’s two younger sisters cannot go to school, the older having almost finished medical school and the younger just completed grade 6, the maximum grade the Taliban allows for young women. Due to the nature of her father’s work for the previous government, Zahir’s family has kept a low profile to keep themselves safe. She says her family’s main response to the return of the Taliban has mostly been shock at the abrupt change. Zahir keeps in touch via text since they don’t have a good internet connection.
22 September 2021, Afghanistan, Kabul: Young Taliban fighters on the back of a pick up truck patrol on the streets of Kabul. (Credit Image: © Oliver Weiken/dpa via ZUMA Press)
The stress she feels due to the uncertainty of her family’s situation, now into its ninth month of duration, is compounded by guilt over living far away in a peaceful country and pursuing her passion in academia. While her sisters miss going to school and walks outside, she continues to study and admits to staying in sometimes, like anyone who just doesn’t feel like going out.
“You're in two different situations all the time,” she says. “There’s conflict inside you. You don't know how to react to different situations. If it's a good one, should I be so happy, or should I feel guilty that I'm happy?”
Terror in Ukraine
Several days after Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, Nadiia Komarnytska was in a video chat with her cousin when they were disconnected. Normally, Komarnytska would just blame poor internet connection, but with the outbreak of war, the possibility of something far worse having happened induced panic.
“I know a lot of Ukrainians here,” said Komarnytska. “During those first months, I don't think we were sleeping.”
Komarnytska’s family—her cousins, uncle, aunts and grandparents—lives in western Ukraine, an area that is not currently the centre of military action but has still felt the affects of war.
Recent science graduate Nadiia Komarnytska is from the Ukrainian region of Ternopil.
At the time of our interview, in the region beside Komarnytska’s home region of Ternopil, the International Airport in Lviv was bombarded. Situated between the Russian ship that shot the missiles from the Black Sea and its target in Lviv, her grandparents heard the missiles as they flew overhead. Every evening they turn out their lights to avoid detection from Russian planes that attack at night.
For the first month of the conflict, Komarnytska says she lost all sense of time. Endlessly scrolling Ukrainian news, texting and talking with family, and then getting up early to go to work made for an exhausting daily routine. Even now, the constant barrage of horrific scenes is a shock that doesn’t wear off.
“At the beginning, it was very hard to believe,” she says. “I felt anger and denial that anything like this can happen in the 21st century. People are dying, civilians are dying, children are dying. I think it was the hardest part to see dead children. And then I had anxiety, depression. More questions than answers.”
The widow cries at the coffin of volunteer soldier Oleksandr Makhov, 36 a well-known Ukrainian journalist, killed by the Russian troops, at St Michael cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, May 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Komarnytska moved to Regina in 2013, joining her parents and brother, who had already been in the city for a year. After finishing up three years of medical school in Ukraine, Komarnytska took several English language courses and then began her degree in biochemistry at the University of Regina. Set to convocate this fall, Komarnytska has been working full-time as a lab scientist at the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory for the last nine months.
Project Resilience will be distributed in the form of scholarships equal to tuition and course fees to students affected by war or other forms of political violence in their home countries. In addition, the university will supply a $1,000 stipend per year, to help cover the costs of textbooks and school supplies.
Her summer plans were to visit Ukraine to attend her cousin’s wedding in July, her holidays already booked. She still hopes to go but knows she will have to wait until the war is over, even though what she wants is quite simple.
“To go home and hug all of them, my grandparents,” she says.
Project Resilience
Motivated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zahir spoke with U of R President Dr. Jeff Keshen in March to share her and her family’s experiences. Project Resilience, a new fund to support students affected by war, was born largely from that conversation, input from members of the University Executive Team and from urging by U of R faculty members to respond to the Ukraine crisis, says Keshen.
Dr. Jeff Keshen, President of the University of Regina. Photo by Trevor Hopkin
Project Resilience will be distributed in the form of scholarships equal to tuition and course fees to students affected by war or other forms of political violence in their home countries. In addition, the university will supply a $1,000 stipend per year, to help cover the costs of textbooks and school supplies.
"We also engaged with student leaders, like Zohra, who are all-too-aware that there are many students across our campus who deal with similar crises in their home countries,” says Keshen.
Four award packages will be available each year, and renewable for three years, so that up to 16 students will be financially supported at any given time. Additionally, the students will be provided with U of R health and well-being supports and services such as academic counselling and UR International supports.
“While the immediate situation in Ukraine prompted us as a community to try to help those who face very difficult, tragic circumstances, we also engaged with student leaders, like Zohra, who are all-too-aware that there are many students across our campus who deal with similar crises in their home countries,” says Keshen.
Zahir admits she desires to connect with other students like herself, to share her experience and hear about theirs. Her own family has been affected by Russian-motivated conflict in the past, with the disappearance of her grandfather at the hands of the Soviet Union, she says. As a result, she can sympathize with Ukrainians.
Zahir says the fund sends a powerful message. With her sisters’ education in Afghanistan restricted by the Taliban, the creation of a fund that helps students prioritize their education is an inspiring counterpoint to the Taliban’s concerted effort to limit education for women.
“The U of R is saying, ‘We know that people don't want you to pursue your dreams, … we have a solution for you,’” she says.
Komarnytska sees the fund as a positive thing for future students, many of whom, she predicts, will come from Ukraine. She also appreciates the creation of a scholarship with an international-student focus, since she personally found it hard to qualify for the scholarships offered at
the U of R.
“For the majority of them, you need to be Canadian or have permanent residency,” she says. “For me it was like, I had a part-time job (during school) then pretty much during summer I worked full-time or even two jobs to get money to pay for university.”
“This is a very good thing and very helpful,” she adds.
Along with helping students avoid the difficult choice of pursuing education or working to support their families back home, for Zahir, Project Resilience undergirds her belief that her study can be a form of resistance.
“Rather than just surviving you are also thinking about more,” she says. “I'm pretty sure lots of people are showing resistance in different ways: they are writing a book, they are going on the news, they are protesting. This is I think how we protest: if you don't want girls to study, we will study harder.”
Komarnytska's summer plans were to visit Ukraine to attend her cousin’s wedding in July. She still hopes to go but knows she will have to wait until the war is over.
Dr. Keshen acknowledges the scholarships from the fund are a “drop in the bucket compared to what students really need,” but that Project Resilience at least “builds that sort of ethos of saying this is an institution that really values its students by showing support and compassion in ways that are possible for us.”
“This fund recognizes that there are diverse students dealing with far more than just the challenges of their university education,” he adds.
“We started evening prayers every day…just not keeping all this inside of yourself. Even to talk to someone helps,” she says.
While both Zahir and Komarnytska recognize the importance of financial support during crises, having someone to talk to who can empathize with them is also needed.
At the start of the Ukraine-Russian conflict in February, Komarnytska was able to tap into support from the Regina Ukrainian community. Part of St. Michael’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, she says she and other Ukrainians came together to raise money to send to people back home, some of whom were fighting on the frontlines. It was important to keep talking about what they were experiencing, together.
“We have lots of things in common,” she says, “which is sad but at the same time I wish that we had this kind of community to just come and talk about whatever we are feeling, share our feelings. Somewhere just to go and cry.”
“We started evening prayers every day…just not keeping all this inside of yourself. Even to talk to someone helps,” she says.
Zohra Zahir felt supported by her colleagues at the University of Regina when the Taliban first took over. She said her classmates did not necessarily know what concrete action to take but told her they were there for her and wanted to help.
“That was amazing,” she says.
The commonality of war
But Zahir admits she desires to connect with other students like herself, to share her experience and hear about theirs. Her own family has been affected by Russian-motivated conflict in the past, with the disappearance of her grandfather at the hands of the Soviet Union, she says. As a result, she can sympathize with Ukrainians.
“We have lots of things in common,” she says, “which is sad but at the same time I wish that we had this kind of community to just come and talk about whatever we are feeling, share our feelings. Somewhere just to go and cry.”
Zahir felt supported by her colleagues at the University of Regina when the Taliban first took over. She said her classmates did not necessarily know what concrete action to take but told her they were there for her and wanted to help.
Despite navigating complex emotions as they cope with the hardships of their loved ones, it doesn’t take Zahir or Komarnytska long to think of a favourite memory of home.
“I love Christmastime,” says Komarnytska. She describes her family’s Ukrainian Christmas supper with 12 dishes, eaten together with her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. She also remembers going as a kid to neighbours’ houses to collect money and candy.
“I think that atmosphere, it's warm. It's something special and amazing and then whenever we carol together that's like even more,” she says.
Zahir recalls visiting her father’s village for the first time when she was 13. She was struck by the culture of the region and the respect the community showed her family. A village called Zendejan, which means “alive,” Zahir says it got its name from its stubborn penchant for survival, despite many attacks over thousands of years. People, she says, just keep coming back to it.
While the reality of war makes the future uncertain, one constant, for Komarnytska and Zahir, remains: the desire to return home and see their families, safe and sound.
“I remember suddenly the sun set and for the first time in my life I saw zillions of stars,” she says. “I couldn't believe that many stars, because they didn't have electricity. That is something I have always thought about like, ‘Oh my god, I miss that sky.’”
While the reality of war makes the future uncertain, one constant, for Komarnytska and Zahir, remains: the desire to return home and see their families, safe and sound.
If you would like to help students like Komarnytska and Zahir, why not consider supporting Project Resilience. You can find more information here.
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Dr. Howard Hamilton, U of R computer science professor and director of the Laboratory for Computational Discovery.
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Stevan Mikha, one of Prairie Robotics co-founders.
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Dietrich and software developer Reid Patterson at the Northwest Regional Symposium in April 2022. The theme of the symposium was Winds of Change - Achieving Sustainability in Solid Waste.
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