Supporting the Victims of Protests in Ukraine

Dear friends,

As you may know, this week the GlobalGiving community and the whole world celebrate the International Youth Day!

Having that in mind, we decided to dedicate present report to young people who were provided better opportunities for education and development and reached their dreams thanks to your generous support. Without further ado we will let one of these young people, Maria, communicate her story to you directly:

“Greetings! My name is Maria, I am 22 years old. Until this year I have been studying archeology in my home city, Lviv. Some years prior to my graduation I had already started to think about my future after the studies. Candidate requirements are very high in this field, whilst qualifications I got at the university are clearly insufficient.

For this reason, I started considering advancing my qualifications by studying abroad. However, it wasn’t long till I realized that it would be impossible for me to cover all the expenses. I was not counting on assistance from my family, which has a medium income and faces financial difficulties, especially since the death of my father. So I dropped the idea.

From time to time over the student years I was considering searching for a job outside of the archeological field. However, after I volunteered to work for a couple of archeological expeditions that were discovering burials of the totalitarian regime victims I realized that I would not be able to do anything else. This was a colossal experience, both professionally and emotionally. It was hard to work at the burials because during the exhumantion one does not simply find remains, but one also finds real people. People that had their close ones, that dreamt about something and probably hoped to get home. People who had very different stories, but faced the same awful end. On the other hand, while working at such objects one realizes how important it is to uncover the truth about crimes against humanity, to add a small part of evidence to the complete pricture of what a totalitarian regime really is, to add to society’s understanding of how important the memory of the past is. I wanted to continue working on this case, but I need to go further with my professional qualificaitons.

As I was looking for opportunities to study abbroad I found out that study in Germany is practically free for foreigners. But I needed to start speaking German fluently very quickly to have the eligibility. At school I only learnt English, German was completely strange to me. Last year, thanks to your financial support, I started to learn German at a language school “Runa” and, taking my progress into account, I only need one more year to reach the level of proficiency I need to enter a German higher educational institution. Withouth your suppport, a language course of such quality and intensity would be unaffordable for me and the process of my study would move along much much slower.

I am very thankful to all the donors for your continuous support of mysself and dozens of other pupils and students. I find this aid much more valuable than simple direct financial help. Helping pay for education you help me get a ticket to the future I want to have”.

In Ukraine, as well as everywhere in the world young people, such as Maria, faces a number of issues and difficulties of life choice while continuing to be one of the key moving forces of any society. Hence, it is our responsibility to make sure that young people are supported in their endeavor to become self-sufficient, financially independent and successful. Such young people will become mature, active citizens who are well-prepared to drive their communities to a better future. 

The project “Support the Victims of Protests in Ukraine” is over, but we continue to support young people who have grown up without parents, including young people who lost their families and/or were displaced during the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, by providing them with training and opportunities for personal and professional development.

Please, do consider supporting our effort by contributing to our project “Youth 4 Youth: Promoting Rights, Transforming Lives” within the International Youth Week Campaign on GlobalGiving.org, which starts today and will last until August 12! During these five days all of the new recurring donations will be doubled by GlobalGiving either immediately or after three months (in case they are kept active).

Read our Youth 4 Youth latest reports or join our Facebook group to find out more! Throughout the week we will be sharing information about the models of youth work we develop and apply, in order to help youth become successful.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Warm regards,

Kateryna Snisarenko

Project Communications Officer