Open World Ukrainian Delegation Community Presentation
Date: Friday November 14, 2025
Time: 7-9pm
Location: The Sebastopol Grange, 6000 Sebastopol Avenue, Sebastopol, CA
Refreshments will be served.
There is no charge for this event and all are welcome.
Sebastopol World Friends invites the community to meet a delegation of Ukrainian professionals who are visiting the United States through the Open World Program of the U.S. Congressional Office for International Leadership. Delegates will share their professional experiences in Ukraine and initial impressions of their week-long exploration of the theme “Establishing Family and Children Counseling Network” with Sonoma County experts.
A group of five Ukrainian professionals, and their program facilitator, will be visiting Sebastopol from November 7 th – November 22nd. They are part of Open World, a U.S. Congressionally sponsored program that brings people from former Soviet and developing nations to the United States to experience open governance and focus study on a variety of topics that have relevance to issues in their own country.
The topic focus for this group is “Developing Child and Family Counseling Networks” and “Children’s Services in Times of War”. During their stay this delegation will be meeting with a variety of individuals and organizations that are providers of human service as well as elected officials including Sebastopol City Council members and U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman.
The delegates are:
- Olena Heivan-Lobova- Special education resource specialist with the City of Chyhyryn
- Rusana Sharlai- President of Poruch NGO which provides a wide variety of social service resources for children and families who are displaced by the war in Ukraine or are victims of abuse
- Snishana Dudnyk- Special education teacher with the City of Cherkasy
- Lillia Lypova- An advisor to a Member of Parliament in Ukraine regarding justice, education, social policy, and security
- Liudmyla Kubatko- A professional development specialist with EdCamp Ukraine, a country wide special education program.
We hope you can join us for this free event welcoming these new friends from Ukraine!
