Ukrainian refugee girl searching for lost phone containing childhood photos, memories
Posted June 25, 2022 9:47 am.
An Edmonton family is desperately searching for a lost cell phone that contains all the childhood photos of a young Ukrainian refugee.
Alexandra Vasylevska says her mother and niece, six-year-old Gelia, arrived in Canada just two weeks ago.
While playing at the Oxford Park Playground in north Edmonton on Wednesday, Gelia’s purse and cell phone were accidentally left behind.
HELP! Have you seen this phone? It was accidentally left in a Hello Kitty purse at the Oxford Park Playground in Edmonton Wednesday.
It belongs to a 6-year-old who recently fled Ukraine. It contains priceless pictures of her childhood & late mother #YEG @CityNewsYEG pic.twitter.com/xIYogcXS0c
— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) June 24, 2022
The phone used to belong to Gelia’s mother, who passed away last summer.
“When she opens the phone, she sees her mom,” Valsylevska said.
When Valsylevska would get messages from her niece, it would still show her sister’s name and picture.
“It’s really, really important to us,” she said.
The phone has also given Gelia an outlet during the Russian occupation of Ukraine, documenting memories of living in Kyiv during the war.
Young Gelia and her grandmother have actually been in Kyiv until quite recently, the last kid left in her neighbourhood. She used the phone to document some of that time, the soldiers who would give her gifts, and look back on pictures her mother took of her childhood. pic.twitter.com/wbIREn2Nax
— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) June 24, 2022
“She was all alone with her grandmother, who is 76,” Valsylevska said, adding most people had left her neighbourhood. “They were all alone, and even soldiers in Kyiv, they would recognize her and give her little gifts.”
Vasylevska has been blown away by the community response since posting on a north Edmonton Facebook group about the lost phone.
“Such a genuine response. One lady went to the playground right away and did a search. Of course, we had already looked.”
She says Gelia has been enjoying life in Canada, and often would sit and show pictures to her aunt from both during and before the war.
“They are our memories, no matter how they were, that’s very dear to us.”
While Gelia's grandmother feels bad the phone was lost on her watch, Alexandra Vasylevska says "she's our hero." In recent years: losing a daughter, raising her granddaughter during a war, leaving her homeland for a foreign country to reunite with her other daughter. pic.twitter.com/AgEWc1quPP
— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) June 24, 2022
The older model smart phone is in a case, with cartoon images of pandas and hearts on the back. Vasylevska says they just want the phone back, no questions asked.
She’s hopeful Gelia doesn’t lose the priceless images of her childhood.
