by Anna Belousova

31 August 2008

Kyiv: The goal of the joint campaign organised by UNV Ukraine and Ukrainian Association for Youth Cooperation “Alternative-V” was to promote volunteering and active citizenship among Ukrainian youth. Mobilizing the younger generations to resolve current problems at a local level is essential for the development of Ukrainian society.

For two weeks international volunteers shared best volunteer practices which had been tried and tested in their countries.

"I was really surprised to find out that volunteer work in some Western countries is obligatory. For example, in the USA and the Netherlands it is necessary to fulfill some volunteer work to graduate from high school. I think volunteer work is not popular in Ukraine because of the pressure during the Soviet Union period. But those times have changed. What we really need to do now is to change this attitude and implement useful practices to help our society grow”, says Larysa Kuharevych, 19-year-old university student from Udryts’k, in Ukraine.

Volunteers developed a special program to highlight the importance and effectiveness of volunteering in local communities. The main concept of the program was to tell the young people to imagine what they would do if they were mayors of their village, then develop a list of changes they would bring to their villages’ lives. More than 150 young people took part in the program. Some of the most mentioned activities included: repairing roads; cleaning of the streets; increasing the number of employment opportunities; building a hospital; renovating the village school, etc. To show how to deal with some of the problems, which can be feasibly solved by the communities involved, volunteers helped the young people to develop plans of actions. The volunteers also assisted in some joint voluntary work in the villages, like cleaning memorial sites and parks.

“It seems that in each village there are different levels of awareness about the goals of volunteering. Some of the best ideas from youngsters came from those villages in which there was a strong leader. People seem to be so much more prepared to volunteer if they see good actions performed by active mayors of villages. Another thing is age. It is more effective to promote volunteerism amongst children from 9 to 12 years old. They seem to be more receptive and flexible, they are happy to take part, especially when volunteer work is presented as a game. Older kids and teenagers, especially those living in poor areas, prefer to think about moving to bigger towns and cities, rather then improving life in their villages”, says Mario Bianco, a volunteer from Italy.

“One of the main goals of our organisation is promoting active citizenship among Ukrainian youth, as we believe it is one of the basic prerequisites to the civil society development and democratic changes in Ukraine. This campaign proved to be an efficient tool for social activity increase among young Ukrainians and will have resulted in concrete projects and activities in the local communities long after the campaign has finished”, comments one of the organisers Oksana Yuryk, International Secretary of the Ukrainian Association for Youth Co-operation Alternative-V.

“This campaign was organised for the second time, as last year we had positive feedback on the same event. I am sure that Ukrainian youngsters we visited during the campaign looked at the volunteering from different perspective thanks to their peers from abroad. We hope meeting group of internationals inspired members of Ukrainian communities to take a lead in improving their lives”, says one of the organisers Anna Belousova, representative of UNV programme in Ukraine.

Photo report from the camp sites >>>