A help centre for refugees who fled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and settled in Ottawa has closed down.
Maidan Market opened in 2022 with the help of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’s Ottawa branch, offering free support services and supplies such as clothing, food and diapers.
Though its space at Westgate Shopping Centre will still host classes to teach people English as a second language until a different classroom can be found this fall, the market folded the rest of its services earlier this month.
“While it is difficult to say goodbye, we are incredibly proud of all we have accomplished together,” read a message to volunteers and market clients on Maidan Market’s website.
Svitlana Maksuita, a Ukrainian refugee and the leader of the market for the last year and a half, said the gathering space gave her a sense of belonging and hope.
“This was my connection to my homeland,” she said.
Lowered demand
But market organizers pointed to a number of reasons for the closure, primarily lowered demand for services.
Cassian Soltykevych, director of the congress’s Ottawa branch, recalled the first few weeks of the invasion when many refugees came from active war zones with very few belongings.
Now many refugees have had time to plan and so the market doesn’t have to support them with as many necessities, he said.
“Those first few months of the war, it was incredibly difficult,” Soltykevych said.
Canada has been accepting fewer Ukrainian refugees since the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) deadline to enter Canada passed at the end of March, further contributing to the lowered demand for the market’s services.
Shifting media attention to other world issues meant the market had dwindling community support too, said Olenka Reshitnyk-Bastian, one of the founders of the market.
“There were just so many things working against the future of the [market]” she said.
Soltykevych said the market had just enough funding to help the most recent refugees through the CUAET program settle in and meet their immediate needs thanks to a GoFundMe and a donation from the Ottawa Community Foundation.
Reshitnyk-Bastian said it’s important to sustain existing community supports for Ukrainian refugees who have already settled in Ottawa.
“I’m not disappointed because I think it was so beautiful for what it was,” she said of the market. “If there’s a desire for a space like that to reopen, it’ll happen.”