Ukrainian families were able to pick up a skill over the weekend as an organization hosted food safety courses in Estevan.

Food Safety 1st, an organization that puts on those in Saskatoon, made the trip down on Saturday.

Russell Scott, who owns the organization and has been working in the health sector for 26 years, details how much work has gone into helping Ukrainian families.

"We've been having a number of food-safe courses offered to the Ukrainian people who have had to flee their homes because of the invasion, and I've taken it upon myself to make this course available to those people who can show me a work permit for February the 24th, 2022, the date of the invasion. I offer the course to them for free, and so far we've had over 60 people attend the course and get their certificate."

"What we did down in Estevan, there was a group of people there, I was told there were about 40 families that moved in there and there would be about 20 people that would be more than happy to take the course. So that's why we drove all the way from Saskatoon down to Estevan and provided a course to them free of charge."

Those courses help to develop a skill for those families and can also help out their employment opportunities.

"This food safe course is recognized and actually it's required by law in many provinces including Saskatchewan and in Saskatchewan," said Scott, "It's one person per shift that is required to have this."

"After the course is complete, we write an exam, which by the way was written in Ukrainian for our friends who have recently arrived. Anybody getting a 70% or higher gets that certificate. I have already corrected the exams and ... everyone passed." 

Scott also has plans to teach more courses, as well as put out books that cover even more languages.

He's doing the courses to help out a community he feels has gone through a lot over the past couple of years.

"I couldn't imagine at all here in Canada, living and being attacked, having to leave our homes, going to another country, speaking another language, trying to get a job, and trying to survive. That's why I'm offering this course to the Ukrainian people," said Scott, "I feel for them, and that's why I'm reaching out to do as much as I can to help them out, to give them a hand."

"I've been doing this for a long time, I've been teaching food safety training since 1986. I think it's my turn now to try and help those that need help the most and that's why I'm doing this."

In response to Canada's Online News Act and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) removing access to local news from their platforms, DiscoverEstevan encourages you to get your news directly from your trusted source by bookmarking this page and downloading the DiscoverEstevan app.