Where are you? – DETY Project

With family ties to Ukraine, present and dating back generations, Toronto resident Steve Ostafichuk has applied his decades long experience as an international researcher/recruiter focused on start-ups to several projects that he has taken on to support Ukraine.

We met Steve at a meeting of Canadian-Ukrainian community members in Oshawa, Ontario in early 2024 to explore ways in which we might jointly support Ukraine.

Since then, we have forged an informal collaborative partnership linking community, postcards, and Ukraine, sharing what Steve describes as “a common vision and motivation: to right the grievous injustice of ruzzian aggression.”

Steve’s dedication to Ukraine is grounded in family history; Russian oppression that includes the murder of his Uncle Gregory, a 19-year-old student, in summer 1941, and numerous relatives persecuted or killed.

Not mincing his words, there are “relatives recently killed by ruzzians. I have visited their graves.”

It’s not complicated, as Steve notes, “for many in the Ukrainian diaspora to be involved in humanitarian fundraising, information distribution, political lobbying.”

It’s personal. It’s social justice.

In 2007, Steve returned to his Ukrainian community roots in Oshawa for an anniversary banquet at his community centre after thirty years away building his life and career. He heard “talk about selling the facility, as membership had significantly decreased and operations were running into a deficit, with major repairs looming.”

Steve decided.

“It was time to donate my time, funds and abilities to support our local and international Ukrainian causes.”

Steve took on administration of the local [Ukrainian] Dnipro Cultural Centre. After closure and sale of the centre, he became Chair of Dnipro Oshawa Fund which has donated more than $1.2million for Ukrainian humanitarian projects [more than 30]. 

Some other projects included working as volunteer property manager at a children’s summer camp undergoing major renovations during Covid lockdown, as well as organizing children’s playday events at Camp Veselka in memory of his late wife, Adriana.

Steve also serves as Country Director, Ukrainian secure telemedicine with Practice Innovators International Foundation (PII) a US-based non-profit organization established to fund and resource humanitarian initiatives delivering Virtual Care for the Most Vulnerable anywhere, anytime.

A notable highlight about which we are familiar is the one-year sabbatical that Steve took from his work to develop a marketing and distribution project that supports Ucrainica Research Institute. Work included development of the Holodomor exhibitions launched on the 75^th anniversary of the Holodomor, the [Soviet] man-made famine in Ukraine (1932-33): “Holodomor: Genocide by Famine”. Featured presentations include Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Queen’s Park (Ontario Legislature) in Toronto, schools, libraries, and museums.

Project development for the exhibit included multimedia content such as the feature story of Konstantyn Bokan that chronicles the experiences and death of a young man during the Holodomor.

Postcards to the Front joined the Holodomor National Awareness Tour at the Oshawa Museum in summer 2025. Visitors attended the multi-media presentation, then wrote postcard messages of support to Defenders of Ukraine.

Steve also has been co-writing a book with Stephan Bandera that chronicles shared family history, “What’s in a name? Hryhoriy? Bandera?”.

It’s a story about two families, the Ostafichuk’s and the Bandera’s, bound by more than a century of history that is part of the greater story of Ukrainian diaspora communities that migrated to Canada from the late 1950’s through the 1980’s.

Intrigue, murder, escape, displacement, journey, arrival, and intergenerational trauma. Unique to each family, but also, as Steve reminds, “a common theme for first generation Canadians who escaped Soviet and German rule after World War Two.”

Steve tells us that the book is in the final editing stage, so … stay tuned!

One particular event that occurred in Ukraine after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine had a momentous impact on Steve, as it did on many around the world: “the tragic bombing of the Mariupol Theatre (March, 2022) by the ruzzian Airforce, resulting in the mass murder of 600 people, mainly women and children taking shelter from bombings. The russian word for kids, ДЕТИ [DETY], was written on the pavement in front of the building, indicating that “Kids” were sheltering in the theatre. Yet, a ruzzian jet dropped two 500-pound bombs on the building, destroying it and killing those inside.”

The name DE TY carries a double meaning. Read in Ukrainian as «ДЕ ТИ?», it asks, “Where are you?” — a plea that speaks to absence, loss, and the search for children affected by war. At the same time, DETY comes from the Russian word «ДЕТИ», meaning “children“, transliterated into Latin letters.

The horrific event led Steve to action, co-founding DE TY Project, with the support of Ucrainica Research Institute, to draw attention to war crimes against children, to remind the world that the war in Ukraine is still happening, and to show international solidarity with the children living through wars around the world.

DETY reports that since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, “Russia’s war has shattered families, erased cultural heritage and language, and inflicted deep physical and psychological trauma on a generation of children. Thousands have been displaced, deported, or forcibly separated from their families, while millions more continue to live under the constant threat of occupation and violence.”

Since its founding, the DETY Project has transitioned from early public awareness campaigns, such as a DETY / Where are you? flash mob, expanding into a broader platform for education and cultural engagement, bringing “together artists, educators, cultural institutions, and community members in Canada, the United States, Ukraine, and beyond. Driven by collaboration and volunteer effort, the Project develops educational initiatives, cultural performances, and public programs that help audiences understand how war affects children, families, and communities — fostering awareness, dialogue, and international solidarity.” This is where Postcards to the Front and Steve, through the DETY Project, expand our collaborative partnership to support Ukraine.

We’ve already had the pleasure to work with Steve to facilitate postcard-writing at community events such as the Holodomor National Awareness Tour, as well as a unique collaboration with Station Gallery in Whitby for the opening of the exhibition, Still in Time | The Prints of Jacques Hnizdovsky, with a parallel exhibition running concurrently at Sens Bookstore in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Hnizdovsky was a Ukrainian-American artist whose artistic training was interrupted at the outset of the Second World War, but he found a place to continue his studies in Croatia. Attendees at the exhibition opening were introduced to Hnizdovsky’s versatile explorations of figurative, flora and fauna motifs.

The opening was attended by students from Ivan Franko Ukrainian Heritage School (Oshawa) who wrote postcards to Defenders of Ukraine as well as to Ukrainian pilots in training, including cards designed by the students themselves (photo below on left).

We wrote about the event, Jacques Hnizdovsky + Postcards, in March, 2025.

This autumn, DETY Project and Postcards to the Front are jointly launching a national educational initiative to foster awareness, dialogue and solidarity amongst students and youth, about Ukraine.

Starting with Greater Toronto Hamilton Area schools and local Ukrainian Heritage schools, churches, and youth organizations, the project will: promote awareness of children’s rights and, specifically, about abducted Ukrainian Children; promote understanding and support of Ukrainian refugees as well as military at the front.

The goal is to expand the project nationally to 70 Ukrainian Heritage schools and to Ukrainian youth organizations across Canada.

Resources will be available to any educator or child/youth organization that would like to access them.

The curriculum will include an interactive classroom component employing resources such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, music, global awareness and support for Ukraine through postcard-writing to Defenders.

Educators will access Postcards to the Front educational resources including our interactive 3D Postcard Constellation that highlights stories from around the world. This exhibition is curated in the visual language of the night sky. Every postcard becomes a star, shining against the dark of night. The trails these stars leave behind illuminate a world otherwise smothered by the darkness of war. And each star represents a postcard warrior or others from all around the world who have connected with this project, with Ukraine. No story stands alone.

Trails animate postcard journeys. Constellations connect people and stories, illuminating commonalities. Starlights is a gallery of Defenders holding the [postcard] sources of light.

As Steve has written postcards to Defenders, he attests to the power of this aspect of the partnership as “it provides an immediate connection with supporters around the world with Defenders of Ukraine.” 

“Each postcard offers “instant emotional gratitude for the Defenders, both emotional and psychological support that the world knows of them, that they are not alone. A simple act of kindness from strangers around the world.”

Steve travels to Ukraine occasionally with different projects and has seen and experienced first hand how the war has impacted Ukrainians and their homeland. He believes that “passion, optimism and bloody determination will result in Ukraine prevailing against ruzzian aggression.”

Still, Ukraine needs help from her friends.

You, dear postcard warriors, are doing a tremendous job of sending messages of support and care to the front lines!

To our dear Tamara, at home base in Ukraine, Steve says, “next time I am in Kyiv, I’d love the pleasure of meeting Tamara.”

Check out DETY Project to learn more about its various initiatives and explore ways that anyone can get involved.

Please tell others about this project. Ask family and friends to write cards. Involve your children and grandchildren. Defenders especially value postcards with drawings from children.

Need cards? Write to us at postcardstothefront.canada@gmail.com. FREE!

Not sure how to get started? Check our “How to” page, and our Ukrainian phrases page.

Want to organize a group of family, friends or others to write postcards? We have a page with suggestions about How to Run a Postcard-Writing Workshop.

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