by NUNV Ihor Pashinskiy, IUNV Ann M. Merrill

06 September 2006

Korosten: At a recent meeting of the Korosten “Youth Council” (Zhytomyrska oblast, Ukraine), members were discussing how sad it was that the town park is so full of litter. The typical traditional response in this former Soviet republic is that “someone ought to do something about it.” For this group of young activists, the response was “We ought to do something about it.”

With the guidance and support of National UNV Ihor Pashinskiy, the Youth Council members organised a park-cleaning Volunteer Action in conjunction with the Korosten Regional Development Agency (RDA). They promoted the event with ads in the newspaper and posters around the park, but they were a bit disappointed when only their own members and members of the RDA showed up at the appointed time to collect the litter. Not discouraged, though, they organised a second park cleaning a few weeks later to again collect and properly dispose of trash throughout the town’s central park. They again promoted the event with ads and fliers, but, as before, only their own members and RDA members arrived to participate in the event. The activity took place on a weekday afternoon, when the park was full with regular users, especially schoolchildren playing and socialising. Many watched as the volunteers collected empty bottles, paper and food wrappers. One group of teenage boys asked what they were doing and why. As they listened to the young people talk about their desire to have a beautiful, clean park, the teenagers realized that they, too, wanted to be a part of this important activity – and they joined in the clean-up! Their work-in-action inspired another group of young people to become volunteers, and to help make a positive change in their community.

The next day, National UNV Ihor Pashinskiy organised a Round Table discussion between the Youth Council representatives and International UNVs Mieczyslaw Lapanowski (Poland) and Ann M. Merrill (USA). For 2 hours, the group discussed volunteerism. The Youth Council leaders talked about their current activities and future plans, and IUNVs discussed volunteerism in their respective home countries. The youth leaders also sought advice from the UNVs on how to promote volunteerism in their local community and how to write grant applications. The UNVs offered to develop and conduct a grant-writing workshop for the Youth Council in the near future.

The Korosten Youth Council’s next volunteer activity will be to support an project, in conjunction with the Korosten Agency for Regional Development, to promote government decentralisation.