Media
Stories of strength: Ivanna, 2019
Photo Ref: 25814
I came to Lake Macquarie for love. We met in Kiev - the capital of Ukraine. If you asked me seven years ago what I missed about life in Ukraine, I would tell you many, many things. But today I don’t miss - I just have good memories. When I first moved to Australia, there were so many people exercising and running - all different ages. That’s what stood out to me. When I was studying for my citizenship ceremony, some of the topics, when I read I thought: ‘Mm, that’s me’, you know? All Australians should treat each other with dignity and respect, regardless of their race, country of origin, gender, sexual preference, marital status, age. That’s when I thought I definitely have something Australian in me. To me, it’s not the city you’re coming to, it’s what you bring in with yourself. The question is maybe you have to search inside of you for that happiness, you know, because a city itself can bring you joy, but not full happiness. What you carry inside is what you will see there.
This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License