BRIGHTON BEACH — When Iryna Sakhariieva and her family fled Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022, they left everything behind, including Sakhariieva’s career as a music teacher. Four years later, they have planted new roots in New York City, with the help of a Saturday school promoting Ukrainian culture.
“It was really hard moving here to New York,” Sakhariieva, who came from Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, said through an interpreter. “We had no family here; we had a few friends. That was it.
“We found good people here. We found a community.”
New Wave Ukrainian Heritage School is open on Saturdays and teaches children ages 3 to 17 the Ukrainian language, culture, and history. It was founded in 2016 by Myroslava Rozdolska, who said she did so to preserve the Ukrainian language for her grandchildren and other young children. What started as a school serving 65 students in 2016 now serves about 500.
“I believe it is important to teach our young people to respect their roots, to cherish their roots,” Rozdolska explained. “Here in America, of course, the language is English. But our Ukrainian children should also know the Ukrainian language.”
However, the school’s mission has somewhat shifted since 2022, now providing refuge for Ukrainian immigrants who have come to the U.S. to escape the Ukraine-Russia war. Rozdolska said the New Wave Heritage School — which partners with Ukrainian New Wave, an organization that helps Ukrainian immigrants settle in the U.S. — has seen an increase in students from families who have fled Ukraine in recent years.
“But now, because of the war in Ukraine, we got more and more children,” she said. “Their parents came to us and told us that our school was very important to them.”
The New Wave Heritage School started off in a classroom space provided by St. Brendan Church and currently rents two entire floors in P.S. 771K, a public school in Brighton Beach.
Sakhariieva teaches music there and has enrolled her 17-year-old son, Valentin Zvarychuk, who said he has “made a lot of friends” through the school.
Another student, American-born Victoria Merenych, 11, said she loves attending the school.
“We learn Ukrainian literature, geography, the language,” she said. “We learn history, too. I like learning about the traditions.” She added that she and her fellow students enjoyed learning to sing the Ukrainian national anthem, “Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished.”
Victoria also acknowledged the importance of welcoming new students to the school, no matter what situation they come from.
“Usually, the teacher will bring the new student to class, and we will all introduce ourselves,” Victoria said. “And then throughout the year, we become closer to them.”