Olga Yurkiw is a journalist, editor, teacher, TED Fellow and co-founder of StopFake, a volunteer organization launched in 2014 to combat false news reports coming out of  Ukraine and Russia during the Maydan Revolution of Dignity. Since then StopFake has evolved into an advanced fact-checking organization with over 200,000 active users covering media in 11 languages and in multiple countries. Their original mission has broadened to help educate news consumers on how to spot fake news on their own, providing useful guidance on exposing biased or inaccurate reporting in order to rebuild the trust we’ve lost in our journalists, leaders and institutions.

Olga was a featured speaker at this year’s Journalism Under Fire conference presented December 4-7 by the Santa Fe Council on International Relations (https://www.sfcir.org/journalism-under-fire/). Afterward, Olga granted us an interview to reflect on the work of the organization from its inception, provide an overview of their effectiveness so far and consider where they are heading in the near future. The interview was conducted in her native Ukrainian.

Learn more about the fight against harmful propaganda and misinformation as well as two critical ways we can ensure that we’re not reading (or sharing) fake news. Olga’s TED talk from April 2018 in English is here:

On Saturday November 3, 2018 members of UANM were treated to the electrifying, high energy 90 minute non stop full on performance of cabaret theater Pralnia (“laundry”), which was originally launched in June 2015, the day after the troupe’ s five members graduated from the Puppetry Department at Kyiv’s National University of Theater, Cinema, and Television. “We had a vision of an ideal theater/laboratory. We understood that we wanted to work in a theater that didn’t exist, so we decided to make one ourselves,” says Pralnia’s Marusia Ionova.  The show they made, and continue to evolve with every performance, truly represents their mission which is “We act and we are ourselves. We ask questions to wash souls, to clean hearts, to freshen minds.” And they certainly did- Thank you, Pralnia, and return to New Mexico soon!

Teatr Pralnia was sponsored by Center Stage, a public diplomacy initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Read more about the event here.

Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico gathered in Albuquerque on October 13, 2018 to join in communion with all other “Light a Candle in Remembrance” actions throughout the globe to commemorate the anniversary of the Ukrainian murder by famine genocide of 1932-33.

The opening solemn panakhyda was sung at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Albuquerque NM by the assembled choir and by pastor Fr. Artur Bubnevych. Mrs. Nataliya Pavlenko, whose family lived and farmed in the Chernihiv/ Nizhyn region of Ukraine, then recollected her childhood memories of the stories told by her mother and grandparents who finally broke their painful silence decades after the horrors of those years, but yet made everyone in the family promise to never speak of this anywhere again outside their home for fear of arrest and imprisonment. She relayed how communist party activists came to their house and took every scrap of food, grain and property they could carry off and how her mother, then a small child of 4 herself, was warned to hide in fear of being killed and eaten when anyone knocked on their door, of how her grandmother, to her last days on earth, went to bed each night only after placing a morsel of bread under her pillow to safeguard against the Holodomor happening again. She explained how her mother was told to swallow small stones to avert the gnawing of constant hunger and how the family pounded acorns in the forest to make flour to shape into little bitter pancakes to eat.

Two documentary films on the Holodomor were then presented to the audience of over 70 attendees, followed by a repast of Ukrainian foods prepared by the organizing committee members. Books and brochures on the topic were also on display, and the organizers acknowledged the generous donation of the Holodomor teacher’s handbook and other titles by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press.

Much was learned and shared that evening and participants left with a greater understanding of the lasting effects of the genocide against Ukraine, a crime which had been silenced for so very long.

On August 26, 2018 Ukrainian Americans of New Mexico celebrated both the 27^th and the 100^th anniversaries of the declarations of Ukrainian sovereignty by gathering at the Albuquerque Civic Plaza to read aloud the official proclamation issued by Mayor Tim Keller.

Organizers of the event also shared warm greetings of support received from the 1.4 million member Congress of Ukrainian Canadians. The formal portion of the event was attended by over 50 participants ranging in age from 3 to 90, representing Ukrainian New Mexicans that had resided here since the 1940’s as well as those who had recently arrived. Father Artur Bubnevych of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church blessed the participants and led the prayers of thanks and in remembrance of our fallen heroes in the continued fight for freedom.

After the initial welcome by organizing committee member Nataliya Edelman, the keynote address was delivered by long time resident and Los Alamos recognized living treasure Stephanie Sydoriak who spoke about how her family, arriving in the US before WWI, had not only preserved Ukrainian traditions, customs and language throughout the decades but had successfully shared it with the indigenous and traditional peoples of New Mexico. She had the good fortune to visit Ukraine in 1990 and join in to joyfully welcome the new spirit of independence that was stirring strongly.

Following the Civic Center Plaza portion of the event, the assembled continued the festivities at a neighborhood park and began planning for the next event.