Activities

How can I Help Ukraine?

On February 24th at 4 AM Kyiv time Russia has shelled all major cities in Ukraine. This brutal and unprovoked attack has already cost thousands of civilian lives and led to millions of people fleeing war, not to mention thousands of military casualties on both sides. You can learn more about this war on Ukraine's official web-site.

Many people ask me: how can I help? There are many things you can do:

Donate to Ukraine, charities that are helping Ukraine from your home country (see the list for your country below) or charities in Ukraine:
- Revived Soldiers Ukraine - medical care for wounded soldiers. Options: PayPal & Credit/Debit, Fondy, CoinBase.
- Come back alive - Ukrainian army fund. Options: Fondy, bitcoin wallet bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5h672yhxmhmxe9tuf97j39fm6 or SWIFT
Urge your government to act in support of Ukraine and donate to a charity that supports Ukraine in your country:
US citizens, click here to show/hide instructions.
- Donate to Nova Ukraine (PayPal/Credit/Debit, FB, Crypto); Razom
- Write to President Biden - here is a template
- Write to Vice-President Harris - here is a template
- Write to your Senator(s) - here is a template. Edit name at the top, sign at the bottom
- Write to House Representative - here is a template. Edit name at the top, sign at the bottom
Canadian citizens, click here to show/hide instructions.
- Write to Prime-Minister Trudeau - here is a template
- Write to your MP - here is a template. Insert your name and riding at the top. Sign at the bottom.
All other nationals, click here to show/hide instructions.
- Write to your head of State, Foreign minister and the representative in Parliament.

Teaching and outreach

Roman and Dr. Halyna Yagenska lecturing to a class ESL teachers from different public schools in Volyn region.

Roman is demonstrating the concert of pH indicators using the cabbage extract to a group of middle school students in Lutsk

Since 2021 I am coordinating a partnership between NovaUkraine nonprofit in the US and Teach for Ukraine nonprofit in Ukraine, being actively involved in both organizations. At Caltech, Tom Miller, Jeff Mendez and I designed a computational component of the freshman laboratory chemistry course, Ch3 based on Envision.

I tutored chemistry, physics and math to high school students throughout my Undergrad. Many of them are currently studying in their dream schools: University college in UK, Columbia University in USA, University of Toronto in Canada. I also trained several Olympiad participants: Kozibroda Bohdan (bronze for Ukraine, IChO-2016) and team Canada for IChO-2018 (2 bronze and 1 silver medals). During the Covid-19 pandemic I was doing Zoom science tutoring for high school students on behalf of the CAUSE tutoring nonprofit.

Linguistics

The map of Greater Toronto area with the pins, standing for the first, second and third generation Ukrainian speakers. As of September, 2018 there are a few dozen speakers on the map. Most pins are on the west side in Bloor West Village, Etobicoke and Jane and Finch area.

I worked as a research assistant in HLVC project, headed by Prof. Naomi Nagy at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto for two years. As an RA I recorded several Ukrainian heritage speakers in Toronto and native speakers in Ukraine, processed and analyzed tens of interviews and helped finish data collection and preliminary analysis for Ukrainian part of the project.

Music

I listen to all kinds of rock music, and I always have a pair of wireless headphones on me. Many people guess these are for listening to music 24/7. And they are wrong! These are mostly so I can listen to audio-books every time I am bored.
Nonetheless, I do enjoy good music, just not as a constant background and I went to the live shows of Metallica, Scorpions, Iron Maiden and many more. I also play the guitar, base and contrabass and I used to be a bassist in an orchestra in Lutsk.

Reading

I used to read a lot of books when I was a kid, by which I mean over 80 of them a year. As I got busier, I read less and less fiction and more science textbooks. Nowadays I almost never read non-science, but I miss it a lot. I use audiobooks as an effective remedy, managing to squeeze in a few hours of listening a day, while performing routine tasks. You can check out the books I have read so far at my Goodreads account. One word of advice: if you are listening to a book, speed it up between 1.5 and 2 times, otherwise they are incredibly boring.

Dance

I started dancing with a Ukrainian dance Ensemble Radist (Ukr. Joy) when I was five. I stopped for a while in high school, but then restarted with new vigour in Toronto, when I joined two adult dance groups, Desna and Vesnianka You can see some of the dances in this playlist

Being Ukrainian

Roman and two volunteers Oksana and Olena, all wearing the traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts

Parade down the Bloor West Village with Ukrainian flags, IKEA (blue-and-yellow) umbrellas and music

Toronto has a vibrant Ukrainian community, that I am proud to have been a part of. I helped to organize several cultural events, that promote and develope Ukrainian-Canadian identity. Most prominently, I led the volunteer effort during Vyshyvanka days in Toronto in 2017 and 2018, helped organize several UCPBA and MEGA Zabava events.

Roman Korol