How We Got The Story: Catching up with two Ukranian women professionals two years apart
Rolling stones, and journalists, gather no moss.
That's because we never stand still. We keep moving from one story or crisis to the next.
The news business is all about churning out stories, recording what's happening in the here and now, "making widgets" or "feeding the beast" as some of my peers call it. But occasionally, we get to stay with a story/issue/crisis for more than one 24-hour news cycle.
For the past five weeks, we've told numerous local stories about the impact of Russia's war with Ukraine paired with daily developments on the ground there.
One such story developed after I was reminded of the time a group of Ukrainian journalists and educators visited the suburbs and toured the Daily Herald in November 2019 as part of the Open World Program. I was part of the newsroom welcoming committee recording their observations in a piece published on Nov. 26, 2019.
They shared concerns of everyday Ukrainians and stories about their nation's struggles, its new president and its news media environment. They spoke of an intensifying war with Russian-backed separatist forces in the eastern Donbas region heightening tensions brewing since Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in early 2014.
"Almost every family in Ukraine has been impacted by war," Viktoria Aliyeva, then a visiting researcher from the Kyiv School of Economics, told us at the time. "That's the top issue."
That's also the first time I met Zoya Krasovska, then an instructor at Ukrainian Catholic University. After our lively discussions, we exchanged business cards with a promise of staying in touch, but little real expectation that our paths would cross again.
Fast-forward two years, four months and a pandemic, I caught up with Viktoria and Zoya three weeks ago thanks to Larisa Koval of Round Lake, a Ukrainian American professor and president of the International Cultural Educational Association.
She had organized the exchange that brought the Ukrainian delegation to our newsroom in 2019 and helped track down Viktoria and Zoya, whom I interviewed over a Zoom video call.
We picked up the conversation seemingly where we had left off with Ukraine in the throes of another war. Read my latest story at the Daily Herald's website.
Zoya, now working for the Lviv Media Forum, switched from providing networking opportunities to media professionals to helping support more than 150 journalists' personal and professional needs. She told us how her organization has helped relocate many journalists and their families from parts of Ukraine under siege to Lviv on the western side, providing financial aid and shelter to them since the war began.
"We try to find body armor for journalists ...," she said.
Aliyeva, now working as a researcher for UNICEF Ukraine, the U.N. children's agency, told us about the war's human toll. "Children are the most vulnerable, obviously, in this situation," she said.
The U.N. refugee agency reports nearly 10 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine since Feb. 24 - 3.6 million have left for neighboring countries and an estimated 6.5 million people are internally displaced.
I wish we could have reconnected under different circumstances, but even so, it was comforting to know that Aliyeva and Zoya are safe and well despite the monumental challenges facing their people and nation.
And we promised to keep in touch, again.