Kosovar refugee looking forward to return to Annapolis Valley

“My goal was to just get as many of the volunteers and staff who are still around to be aware that there are people somewhere in the world who remember and care to commemorate them.” Olsa Morina Former Kosovar refugee

Plans for a reunion of Kosovar refugees and volunteers who helped when they arrived in Canada 25 years ago are coming together, and Olsa Morina is among those looking forward to the event.

Morina said there has been a lot of interest in the upcoming May reunion, with the official events taking place at Pier 21 in Halifax, but she is as excited about making a visit to Kentville and the military

base in nearby training

Aldershot, where she and her family stayed for a while after arriving in Canada.

“I’ll tour the town, and hopefully get to see Aldershot for a bit,” she said.

She doesn’t remember any of that time, as she was only a toddler. Her family moved to western Canada not long after they arrived.

That means she also doesn’t know any of the Red Cross and other volunteers who helped the new arrivals in Canada who were escaping the war in their homeland. But she’s still looking forward to meeting them, and is happy with the response to the event so far.

“My goal was to just get as many of the volunteers and staff who are still around to be aware that there are people somewhere in the world who remember and care to commemorate them,” Morina said. “I want them to know that 25 years later we are still very grateful, and hopefully I get to (speak with as) many people as I can who were a part of Aldershot or Greenwood.”

Morina was just under two years old when she arrived in Nova Scotia with her family on a flight to 14 Wing Greenwood, before being moved to accommodations at Aldershot. She now lives in Alberta.

A Facebook group has been set up for people interested in attending or connecting online via the event.

Morina has talked on Facebook to some of the volunteers who have responded, and “it’s been very heartwarming to hear their point of view of the experience. I had multiple people tell me that it changed their lives, and that brought tears to my eyes,” she said.

“That, to me, is the most important part about it, hearing not only what we received, but what the people who helped us received.”

PETER PARSONS • FILE Olsa Morina, then almost two years old, waves to photographers from her father’s shoulders at Camp Aldershot in this newspaper clipping from May 1999. Morina, a refugee from the war in Kosovo, is returning to Nova Scotia in May for an event that will mark 25 years since the arrival of 2,500 people in the province and provide a chance for people to reconnect with volunteers and workers who helped them in their first days here.