Baring their soles Walk a mile in newcomers’ shoes in project that shines light on journey to Winnipeg By: AV Kitching Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Mar. 9, 2023

Yuliia Kovalenko’s sneakers were still box-fresh when war broke out in Ukraine. She had bought them on Feb. 23, 2022, the day before Russia invaded her home country, and hadn’t had the chance to wear them before she was forced to flee Kyiv for Poland.

The sneakers remained unworn for the three months she was in Warsaw, tucked away beneath the other belongings she had grabbed in a panic, until she arrived in Winnipeg in June last year.

“They are the first pair of shoes I wore in Canada. I took my first steps in this country in those sneakers. That’s why they are so important for me,” Kovalenko says.

Kovalenko and nine other women are taking part in The Shoe Project, a Toronto-based program that makes its debut in Winnipeg this weekend. It features personal stories written and performed by immigrant women who have made this city their home using a pair of shoes as a metaphor for their journeys.

The women crafted their stories with the help of Patlee Creary, owner and lead facilitator of Reyou Mindfulness Collective, a mental wellness studio in Pinawa.

“Our goal is to provide trauma-sensitive mindfulness storytelling and journalling training to individuals that will help them restructure their identities and improve their well-being,” Creary says.

Over the course of 10 weeks, Creary helped the women craft their tales during two-and-a-half hour workshop sessions. Using the shoe as an artifact, Creary guided the women to focus on a single aspect of their story that they wanted to share with the world

“With this project we are limited to a 600-word essay and a maximum of 10-minutes performance time. There is a lot of editing to get to the point of getting to one story which can be told. We started with oral storytelling, focusing on who they would like to tell their story to and what they would like the audience to get out the story,” she says.

“What we have been working with these women is to have them tell a story of their journey to Canada in a way that becomes an inspiring and restoring narrative that helps build them up and also others who have experienced the same challenges and issues.”

While the goal was for each woman to have their story written and ready to be performed in front of a live audience, the real outcome, Creary says, was to recognize these are shared experiences and the women were not going through them on their own.

Kovalenko joined because it provided an opportunity for her to improve her English skills, connect with like-minded people and become more confident. She has noticed the changes in herself since she started on the project, she says.

“I was worried about how I would do this; my English is poor, and I am not confident at all, but now I compare myself to five months ago and I see two different people. It changed me and it changed the way I feel about myself when I speak English.”

For Sangeetha Nair, telling her story was a chance to share a different perspective. By nature a problem solver, the Malaysian-born Nair found herself grappling with something she couldn’t solve. Her story, The Boots of Courage, came at a turning point in her life. She had arrived in Canada to join her mother, who was already living here, and started the long-drawn out immigration process of becoming a permanent resident.

“I was living in limbo; looking for a job and somewhere to live in a place I couldn’t even call home yet. I was tired of living with the fear of uncertainty. I decided enough is enough; I am going to live my life and thrive in it,” she says.

“It was out of my hands. I had to accept that at any time I could have been asked to leave. I had to stop torturing myself. I needed to mark that moment and so the first thing I did was to go out and buy those boots. They were the first thing I purchased to indicate my commitment to staying here.”

Nair enjoyed the writing process and gained a lot from meeting the different women and hearing their stories. She relished her time with Creary, whom she says was very nurturing.

“Patlee herself is an immigrant and she understands. She’s down there with you, helping you through it. She made us feel comfortable enough to share parts of our stories we wanted to share. She was very patient in guiding me,” she says.

The women were given public speaking and performance coaching from actor and director Rachel E. Smith.

Smith worked on building their confidence and comfort levels, reassuring them their stories were important and worthy of being heard. She says she was inspired by all the stories she heard.

“The audience can expect to hear different stories from different perspectives and gain an understanding about what some people’s experiences are like when moving to another country. There will be some people who have never left Winnipeg and others who have travelled to many places, but everyone can get something out of it, regardless of their background,” she says.

Juliana Zalta moved to Canada from Brazil three years ago with her family. She came here to offer her daughters the opportunity to live in a safer country that has moral values closer to what she and her husband believe.

She took part in the project to develop her communication skills, in particular writing and speaking.

“I could notice how I improved my text and I felt confident in both speaking and writing. My story is about Caramel, my old boots which I had worn for 15 years. To me Caramel is more than just an object, she was a dear friend who had a life filled with adventures, had gone with me to many places and had been with me through many life events.”

While this isn’t the first time she’s written and presented, Zalta’s previous writings were of a more professional nature. She says despite the similarities in the process, writing about herself made her reflect on which parts of her story she wants to share with others.

“It is a new challenge but the writing process was pleasurable. I would like to keep on writing texts like this now. Working with Patlee was very motivating; she was very attentive and very emphatic with all of us. The hours I’ve spent together with Rachel were a lot of fun. When I’m rehearsing with her I feel that I can definitely communicate in English, even though it’s not my mother tongue,” she says.

Zalta hopes projects like The Shoe Project will motivate more immigrant women to give voice to their lives and help them feel more valued and confident, like it did for her.

“I hope that people who hear my story understand that each of us has own story. That resilience is a fundamental skill for an immigrant. That the fact that nobody knows us in a new country does not change our essence or our values,” she says.

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

AV Kitching
Reporter

AV Kitching is an arts and life writer at the Free Press.

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