Oseredok cultural center in Winnipeg sets sights on major expansion (01/10/99)

Oseredok cultural center in Winnipeg sets sights on major expansion

by Yuriy Diakunchak
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WINNIPEG - The Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and Education Centre, located in the Manitoba provincial capital's downtown area, is setting its sights on an ambitious expansion that will see it more than double in size over the next decade or so.

With seed money from various levels of government, Oseredok will add new space to house its ever-expanding archives, library, art collection and community services.

"We have nowhere to display a lot of our collection. We have one of the largest collections of Ukrainian artifacts in Canada," said Linda Hunter, president of Oseredok's board of directors since July. Ms. Hunter specializes in software development and Y2K conversions. At present, she is consulting for Credit Union Central.

Oseredok, which boasts 900 members, is currently located in a five-story building not far from the famously windy intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street. Although Winnipeg's downtown has fallen on hard times in recent decades as the well-to-do have fled to its suburbs, a revival appears to be taking place. The Exchange District, just steps away from Oseredok's locale, offers art galleries, boutiques and the odd eatery. To the north, however, shabby hotels and rough bars along Main Street attest to the long road left to travel before the city's core is revitalized. Nonetheless, Oseredok may one day find itself in a very desirable part of town if the migration to the suburbs is reversed.

An initial budget for the Oseredok construction project drawn up in 1994 foresaw a cost of $10 million for the entire project. "We have to take a look at that and see if a new funding structure is needed," said Ms. Hunter.

The building will take place in stages. The first stage is now expected to cost around $4 million and will consist of renovating the old Oseredok building and partially constructing the "tower," a new five-story building that will be attached to the existing structure. The second phase will see the completion of the tower.

In the third phase, a permanent gallery and museum will be built to house Oseredok's collections. Initially these final two stages were to cost $2.5 million and $5 million, respectively, according to Ms. Hunter, but these figures are now likely to increase.

Building timetables depend on how fast money can be raised. "It could be a three-year project or 15-year project, depending on funding," said Oseredok's board president. She said the center has not yet been very active in soliciting funds from the community but will soon start to do so.

Ukrainian community ambivalent

The lack of a strong commitment from the Ukrainian community is a serious roadblock on the way to achieving this new center. "We don't know what the level of community support is [for this project]," said Peter Washchyshyn, one of Oseredok's board members. The committee has spent a lot of time "navel gazing" on the project, as Mr. Washchyshyn puts it, but doesn't have its finger on what the community wants or is willing to support. "I'm a bit disappointed that we haven't proceeded further," he said.

The project has been in the works for three years now and, according to Mr. Washchyshyn, there is strong support for it at all levels of government and among Winnipeg's non-Ukrainians, but "I'm not sure where we stand with the [Ukrainian] community," he said.

The Ukrainian community's ambivalence poses a real problem for Oseredok, since a lot of government money for the project is contingent on matching funds that the center's activists can assemble, funds that obviously have to come from the community in one way or another.

Oseredok has received $600,000 from the Infrastructure Program, a joint federal and provincial program. Each level of government kicked in $300,000, contingent on Oseredok raising $300,000 itself. Under this program, the fund recipient submits receipts, two-thirds of which are paid by the Infrastructure Program. So far, about $200,000 of this has been spent on the design of the new Oseredok. The deadline to use the funds from this program is March 1999.

The Winnipeg Development Agreement committed $1 million to the project. This is a $75 million joint federal, provincial and municipal project that funds approximately 14 projects in Winnipeg. The $1 million for Oseredok is part of the North Main Development Program administered by the city of Winnipeg. The deadline to use this money falls in 2002; it also is contingent upon matching funds from the community. It is to be spent on the first phase of construction, which will cost about $4 million.

Oseredok was also granted $175,000 from the Winnipeg Foundation, an organization that funds charities in the city. The money was contingent upon starting construction, but the deadline has since lapsed and no construction has been undertaken. Mr. Washchyshyn is confident that the money will be reinstated upon re-application to the fund, but that remains academic as long as Oseredok has trouble raising the matching funds it needs to begin construction.

A restructuring, too

Oseredok's expansion is not exclusively a bricks and mortar affair. The center has recently undergone some restructuring, and the new team hopes to provide new services to revitalize the community. "Last year we let all staff but one go," said Ms. Hunter. A new executive director, Shelley Greschuk, has since been hired to act as the center's chief executive officer and head of fund-raising.

The center's need for restructuring reflects Ukrainian Canadian society as a whole, according to its president. "We've become a fairly splintered group. We need to come together. We need to get youth at the grade school and high school level. We need to market to them, advertise to them what is available," Ms. Hunter observed.

She admits there are groups within Winnipeg that have never heard of the center. "We invited one of the girls in a bandura group to our art auction ... it was the first time she had heard of Oseredok."

Oseredok offers all types of programs, from art exhibits to garage sales. It hosts lectures and monthly Genealogical Society meetings which attract many people. There is also a program that helps new immigrants find housing, job opportunities and school placement for their children and otherwise acclimate themselves to life in Canada.

The programs for the new immigrants were the initiative of Oseredok librarian Larysa Tolchinsky, an immigrant from Kyiv who came to Canada in 1990 and was hired by the center in 1992.

"Shelley Greschuk and I decided we needed to promote the center to the large number of new immigrants coming to Winnipeg," said Ms. Tolchinsky. In order to do that, Ms. Tolchinsky contacted a number of government ministries like Revenue Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Human Resources Development, and arranged for volunteers from those departments to conduct sessions with immigrants.

For instance, Revenue Canada held a workshop on how to fill out tax returns. The immigration department gave new immigrants pointers on how to bring in relatives to Canada. Other orientation sessions taught résumé writing and other job search skills.

This program was initiated in 1996 and lasted for two years, with Saturday morning sessions that were held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., but was suspended in January. Ms. Tolchinsky said she hopes it will start up again in September 1999.

This past summer, English language courses were offered to immigrants. The Oseredok librarian said about 60 people took advantage of these courses taught by George Duravetz and Jaroslaw Zurowsky.

The library collection that Ms. Tolchinsky oversees includes about 65,000 books - 40,000 of which have already been catalogued. There are also 450 periodical titles, including 250 daily or weekly newspapers. A separate section is devoted to DP publications issued in Germany. The library was set up in 1944, at the same time that Oseredok was established.

The library also offers a translation service in Ukrainian, English, Polish, Russian and Slovak. Fees are a very reasonable $10 per page for recent immigrants and $15 for others. Ten percent of the fee goes to Oseredok, and the rest to the translators.

Though Winnipeg has a large Ukrainian community, its impact is not always very visible. For example, the display on Ukrainians in the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature can be charitably described as meager. This is a fact recognized by Ms. Hunter. "It's really unfortunate we've kept our culture mainly to ourselves. We need to market ourselves and show how we've contributed to the city and the province," the Oseredok official said.

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For more information on the center write to: Oseredok, 184 Alexander Ave. East, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3B 0L6; call (204) 942-0218; fax, (204) 943-2857; or e-mail, ucec@mb.sympatico.ca.

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