KYIV – On November 22, Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Eugene Czolij, while in Kyiv, presented a donation in the amount of $25,000 to National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) from the estate of the late Dmytro Shelegon.
Born in Zastavna in the Bukovyna region of Ukraine, Mr. Shelegon immigrated to Canada after World War II, settling first in Thunder Bay and then in Oshawa, where he dedicated his life to the prosperity of the Ukrainian community, particularly St. John’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, where he and his wife, Julia, were active parishioners. Mrs. Shelegon, a Holodomor survivor, was a teacher, author and poetess, publishing two books under the pen name Vera Vorsklo. The issue of education was close to the hearts of the couple, and they shared in their high regard for the work of NaUKMA.
The donation, accepted by NaUKMA President Andriy Meleshevych, will serve to establish the Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation of Canada, and together with the newly established foundation, NaUKMA will develop a program related to the Ukrainian diaspora.
The UWC president was accompanied to the presentation by the director of the UWC Mission to Ukraine, Serhiy Kasyanchuk, and the director of the UWC Mission to International Organizations in Brussels, Maryna Iaroshevych.
“It is an honor for the Ukrainian World Congress to present this donation in memory of its late supporters Dmytro and Julia Shelegon to the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with which it has a long history of cooperation, and we look forward to the development of a program related to the Ukrainian diaspora,” stated UWC President Czolij.