Marichka Bokovnia
Captured by Pano Media
Redesigning Her Life
In this talk, Marichka Bokovnia frames her story like a flight announcement, starting with arriving in Toronto in May 2022 with no housing, no plan, and a brutal reality check about how different “basic life admin” can be in a new country. The first days are raw, scary, and lonely, and she names the mental fork in the road: collapse or keep moving.
She rewinds to the moment everything changed in February 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, and how a short summer research opportunity in Canada became a survival pivot. What was supposed to be three months turns into a bigger decision: stay longer, find work, and support family back home. Ottawa becomes the landing point, partly because of a friend, partly because any city is hard when you are starting from zero.
Marichka describes the job hunt wall, being told she lacks “Canadian experience,” taking a hotel job that wasn’t her lane, and realizing forcing a bad fit wastes time. That frustration becomes the spark for entrepreneurship. She and her friend Jane decide to create their own jobs, spending a full day in a random coffee shop mapping out responsibilities, conflict plans, and what their agency could actually be. They learn the hard way that doing marketing is one thing, running a business in a new country is another.
From there, the talk shifts into purpose. She joins the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, where her skills connect directly to supporting Ukraine and the Ukrainian-Canadian community. She also shares a creative project from her first Halloween in Canada: posters that tied the holiday to awareness about the war without shaming people. The posters spread widely, reinforcing her belief that even small creative actions can have real impact.
She closes with what resilience looks like now: balancing a full-time role in community work with building the agency, finding creative community in Ottawa, and returning to a simple truth. Life is hard either way. The choice is which hard you commit to.
@bokovnia_marichka
