What is Even Going on in Ukraine? (From our Perspective)

01/28/22 • 27 min

You've read the news, you've heard all the rumblings about Ukraine and Russia, and we figured it was time to pipe in from our end. What is even going on around here????
In this episode I'm joined by Jed, my husband and co-founder of Wide Awake International. He's way smarter about all things politics, so rather than bumbling through things I decided to have him talk about it. We talk about some of the history leading up to the current threat of Russian aggression, how it feels to live here in Ukraine in this moment, and how we are planning and prepping for all kinds of different scenarios.
I hope this episode gives you a little perspective and eases the minds of our mothers. 😂 Enjoy!
The Kyiv Independent article: "Ukrainian Voices are Missing from the Drama Over Ukraine's Future"
Euromaidan Press (another source of Ukrainian news)
Netflix Documentary: Winter on Fire

The vision of Wide Awake Int. is to bring hope, love, and dignity to people with disabilities in Ukraine. We are living that out by bringing our friends out of institutions and into family life.

The vision of Wide Awake Int. is to bring hope, love, and dignity to people with disabilities in Ukraine. We are living that out by bringing our friends out of institutions and into family life.

Previous Episode

The Response

In the first episode, I shared how our eyes were opened to the plight of orphans with disabilities in Ukraine. We just had no idea that world even existed! In this episode, I tell the story of how we responded to that newfound knowledge. I might have gotten a little choked up at one point...I promise not to do that every time! 😆
Our First Trip to Romaniv

The vision of Wide Awake Int. is to bring hope, love, and dignity to people with disabilities in Ukraine. We are living that out by bringing our friends out of institutions and into family life.

Next Episode

What Are We Doing Here?

So, what exactly do we even do here in Ukraine? Wide Awake International has a lot of moving parts and I don't blame you if you have a bit of a hard time keeping them all straight 😆. In this episode, I introduce our boys and our team, explain the full picture of what we are doing here in Ukraine, and describe the different focuses of our work here. It's an info-heavy episode...you've been warned!
PS: My brother, the super talented Matt Bittner, is our new sound designer for the podcast! The music is his and it's perfect.
Read about when we adopted Vlad
When we brought Boris home
Bringing home Ruslan and Anton
Bringing home Sasha
Wide Awake Int. Org Chart

The vision of Wide Awake Int. is to bring hope, love, and dignity to people with disabilities in Ukraine. We are living that out by bringing our friends out of institutions and into family life.

Wide Awake International - What is Even Going on in Ukraine? (From our Perspective)

Transcript

Kim00:00:01.020

Hi Friends, welcome to the Wide Awake International podcast. This is a place where we share stories of bringing hope, love and dignity to our friends with disabilities here in Ukraine. I'm Kim, and today, I'm joined by a very special guest. This is Jed, my husband, the other half of the founding of Wide Awake International. And I wanted him with me today because he's way smarter than me about all things political. And, yes, we had planned to share in o