Youth 4 Youth: Building Skills, Transforming Lives

Dear Friends! 

We have not been posting information about the youth clubs for a while, but now we are here with some great youth news!

We have teamed up with a number of great organizations from Austria, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and started a programme called DARE (which stands for Dream-Achieve-Realize-Express). DARE improves experience of children and youth in education and empowers them to not only passively receive knowledge, but also become the active agents of social change.

In the framework of the programme and with the support of programme's initiator, Caritas Austria, and your generous donations we trained representatives of our partner organizations from 3 local communities: towns Valky and Drohobych and Novi Petrivtsi village. Using knowledge and skills received in training and our further support, organizations started children's / youth parliaments in their communities.

With this report we would like to tell you about the incredible Youth Parliament of Novi Petrivtsi! Not only did it become a great platform for interaction of the three local shools (not just between the students, but teachers to!), during just two short months Praliament team has already made significant steps in terms of helping the local community to become a comfortable and safe environment that provides equal opportunities for everyone!

First of all, they brainstormed and developed projects, drafted presentations for potential partners and sponsors. Particularly fruitful and active work took place during the week prior to meeting with the Head of the Village Council, Radion Starenkyi, and his colleagues.

«Someone gets inspiration from running around with rollerblades and someone gets helped by the stuffed cat called Syrnyk [cottage cheese pancake]. Therefore the work is «boiling». And to get our minds off from time to time we play board game «Enter Dignityland», - reported Sergii, youth parliament coordinator on the Facebook page of the Parliament. 

During the actual meeting youngsters presented two project ideas they already had been developing and answered questions of the public servants. On July 30 Youth Parliament team also met with parents and other community members from Novi Petrivtsi and the nearby Stari Petrivtsi – and their projects got a warm response and support.

But Youth Parliament does not only include intense brainstorming and project development! Teenagers also receive training to develop their skills. And sometimes, when sitting inside gets somewhat tiring, Youth Parliament has outdoors meetings, during which youth continue discussing ideas for community development or simply go for a hiking trip, play ball games and have other fun activities. 

Youth Parliament also helped the Novi Petrivtsi community to properly celebrate the Ukrainian Youth Day (June 30, 2018) with a hiking trip “Survival School”, during which youngsters learnt how to save somebody from drowning and provide first medical aid; training “How To Become Successful”; streetball championship and a concert + discotheque. 

Finally, this week young people have visited Moldova where they had a chance to network with representatives of other communities that have similar initiatives and develop their common position on the Rights of the Child, including the right for participation.

Without a doubt one can say that every participant of this Youth Parliament truly embodies their collective motto: “Don’t be indifferent, be active!”

The plans of these active kids for the upcoming autumn are very ambitious:

-       To create a Youth Employment Center online community and database for Novi Petrivtsi and two closest villages, Stari Petrivtsi and Liutizh

-       To mobilize community and organize cleaning of an abandoned pound in Stari Petrivtsi

-       To reform the local library and turn it into a center of culture and leisure activities

-       To organize community events, such as an open air cinema and a roller skating event in Novi Petrivtsi 

We would like to send you a HUUUUGE thank you for helping make establishment of this incredible Youth Parliament possible and ask you to continue support this project, in order to ensure that all these plans come true!

Links:

• The Youth Parliament on FaceBook

Dear friends,

As the season of miracles and festivities is about to start, it is important for us to let you know how much your support enriches the lives of vulnerable young people who are deprived of parental care and very often of any kind of support in general.

Therefore, we are sending you story of a young lady who has been participating in trainings and other activities of youth club “Alternative” in Dnipro for three years.

Hopefully, the inspiration of this story will accompany you during the upcoming season.

“My name is Valia*. My life has changed significantly thanks to the youth club “Alternative”. I have been attending activities of this club for three years now. During these years many things have changed in my live. What is most important for me, I learnt to respect the others, support them in difficult situations, learnt to reach my own goals no matter what.

During the trainings [of the youth club] me and other participants learnt to outline our goals and the ways of achieving them. One of my goals was to enter a professional school and I knew that it would not be easy. My first try failed, but I did not give up. I was diligently preparing myself, took additional classes and finally succeeded. Study does not come easy for me, especially when it comes to math, English and some other subjects too. But I started to attend additional classes organized by a charity foundation. I started to read much more and, thanks to this, started to speak and write withless mistakes.

I also learnt to be patient, express my thoughts clearly and talk to other people with respect, never to be rude. Now I think it is important to help close friends, trust each other, compliment each other once in a while.

Other things I mastered were planning various projects, avoiding polluting the environment and keeping my own living space clean as well.

I also explored various ways of communication, learnt to always be polite, be brave and solve difficult situations without conflicts and fights.

I learnt to work in a team and deliver common projects, behave in a safe way online.

I started to treat my own life with wisdom, became more persistent with reaching my goals and now I never give up and stay positive no matter what. I realized that it is important to demonstrate my love to close friends and those people who are practically family for me, take care of them, treat them with respect.

All these things helped me to find a job on the Internet, pass interview and get the job. Yes, it is not a high paying job so far, but I found it myself and I am making my own money. Slowly I am learning to solve my own trouble and always achieve what is wished, to forgive people and fight for what is important.

Right now my life has much more sense and I am very thankful to the youth club “Alternative” for all this!”

Such stories are possible thanks to your kind support and GlobalGiving, as always, provides opportunities to quantify them. This Giving Tuesday the platform is making all donors and all donations count all day**. Therefore, we want to kindly ask you to consider starting a new recurring donation, since those are guaranteed a 100% match and, hence, will have the potential to strengthen our effort twice as much. Thanks to your support and GlobalGiving’s wonderful opportunities we will be able to make more stories like this come true.

Of course, we will also highly appreciate sharing and distributing information about youth clubs via any channel accessible to you.

On behalf of all the young people who have attended the youth club “Alternative” during these last years let me thank you for all that you have already done to support this cause and ask you once again to help us keep it rolling!

Regards,

Alyona Levchenko

Youth Club Leader, Youth Club “Alternative”

*The names of the beneficiaries are changed to protect their identity.

**Find out more about #GivingTuesday matching campaign by GlobalGiving here.

Dear friends!

Once again we are heading towards that part of the year when the results of our activities should be summarized and analyzed, plans reviewed, conclusions made!

Thanks to your kind support we have been able to sustain our effort over the last few years and support not one, not two, but three generations of youth clubs! In our previous reports we have told you stories of individual clubs, of the whole “generations” (or, if you prefer “editions”) of youth clubs. We have also told you about the struggle that is sometimes faced by youth trainers and, most importantly, about the success stories of the youth club participants and the changes that happened in their lives.

Each of the “generations” or “editions” of youth clubs means that a whole cycle of “How to become successful” trainings and other exciting activities (which usually takes 6-9 months) was completed by a number of vulnerable young people from different communities and different regions of Ukraine.

But we are particularly happy to see that each generation continues and enhances the efforts of the previous one, becoming an integral part of the local communities and, at the same time, creating a cross-regional community of support. Such clubs have been functioning in Kaniv and Smila of Cherkasy Oblast and the city of Dnipro. In this report we would like to take a closer look on what has been achieved by these youth clubs during their third year.

“In the town of Kaniv the news about the youth club spread really wide, especially among the young people. - Says Katia, one of the youth trainer. - A lot of positive feedback from youth club participants of the previous years created wonderful conditions for continuation of this work. Motivation of young people was supported mainly through interesting activities and gaining useful knowledge, through meetings with new people, comfortable atmosphere and opportunities for participation in other creative youth projects”.

Kaniv youth club, “How To Become Successful” engaged young people living in residential institutions of long-term foster care, between 15 and 18 years old and put an emphasis on developing the skills of self-analysis, communication, professional choice.

“Participants confirmed at several occasions that they are always eagerly expecting the next sittings of the youth club. - Says Maksym, the youth trainer of the Smila youth club “Step to Success”. - Also, participants feel free around their peers, actively communicate during trainings”.

This youth club has been functioning since 2014 and drew considerable attention of the local community, including media. For example, in 2016 local media created a video report about the second “generation” of the club attendees. During introductory meeting of the club Maksym now uses photos and evidence of the participants from previous year, which creates an effective appeal to the young auditory.

Youth club “Alternative” from Dnipro, which is also one of the youth club “seniors” this year put a lot of effort into deepening knowledge of young people about civil and social rights, encouraging them to become active members of their communities. “Some participants even got rid of harmful habits, - share trainers of the club, - namely, smoking, drug and alcohol consumption. 1 participant managed to secure their own place by the time they turned 18. 3 participants realized their dream of visiting Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. 5 participants took decisions about their professional paths and started study in accordance with these decisions”. These are, according to the trainers, the most considerable results achieved by this youth club in 2017.

We thank you for all you have done to make the youth clubs tradition so sustainable!

In our next report we are going to tell you a success story of one of the youth clubs participants, do not miss out!

Warm regards,

Kateryna Snisarenko

Project Communications Officer

Dear friends,

The International Youth Day is coming up this week. Thanks to this occasion our common effort to empower vulnerable young people is celebrated by GlobalGiving!

All of the new recurring donations to our project started during the week between August 7 and 12 will be matched by 100%! The International Youth Week Campaign will start at 9 am EDT! If you would like your donation to be doubled immediately, hurry up because available funds exhaust quickly!

However, if you are late there is still possibility to get your donation matched after 3 months. The only condition is that you keep it active throughout this time. And since it might seem like a long time to wait, let us tell you how the effects of your kind support become only more considerable as the time goes by.

With this aim in mind, let us share a personal story from a young person whose life has changed for the better thanks to your continuous help.

“My name is Vlad*. This summer I turned 18 years old. I am in my third year of study at the Volyn’ Technical College of the National University of Food Technology. I live in a big family. I have four brothers: three are younger and one is elder than me.

My teenage years were hard and I felt that I needed to change something. Besides, I thought that I had psychological issues and, therefore, I was hoping to find solutions to my problems in psychological therapy. However, it was not easy to go to a psychologist by myself, so my friend helped me. He walked me over there and helped to get distracted from the thoughts about the final aim of our walk. Thanks to him, I did not notice how we got to the psychologist office.

During the session I told to the psychologist about everything I was worried about. We had a conversation and at the end she advised me to come to the first meeting of the club “How to Become Successful” where she was the trainer. Without much thinking, I agreed, because I was eager to start changing something around myself.

This is how I became a participant of a youth club. I could tell a lot, but I would like to tell about the main things that changed my life: many new interesting acquaintances, even more topics undiscovered before and other things that revealed to us during each session. It was both fun and useful. Also, I liked the master-classes very much, during which we learnt to do something new. Also, interesting and successful people were visiting us. And at the very first master-class I met a yoga instructor, a girl that impressed me a lot. After that training I contacted her and she offered to come to the yoga class, which I did, even though it was a little scary for me. Still, I got very interested in this topic, since I wanted to discover myself. It has already been 9 months since then and I sill practice yoga and find new reasons to continue doing this.

Our youth club and yoga—these are two things that helped me make my life better or, to be more precise, to change my attitude towards ordinary things. Training at the youth club gave me a push towards these changes... I am thankful for the time, the knowledge and the faith that were given to me. Only after becoming a part of the youth club, I realized that all the changes in my life start with me.”

This story was written down by Vlad himself in the summer of 2015, the year after he participated in a youth club, as a memo of the changes he has already reached as well as the point of departure for his future endeavors.

Today Vlad is already 20 years old. He has continued taking yoga classes and became a true master in the field. He also became passionate about sports which is now a great interest of his to. Vlad is a successful student of one of the best universities in Ukraine, an active citizen and a volunteer of several NGOs. He is confident and happy.

But the changes that started with Vlad’s participation in a youth club meeting would not be possible without your help. Therefore, on behalf of Vlad and other young people who benefit from this project let me thank again you for all your support!

International Youth Week Campaign is a great chance to boost our common effort! And donations are not the only way to do so! We will highly appreciate if you could help us get more supporters through sharing this and other reports with your family, colleagues and friends. Like our Facebook page to find out even more! Throughout this 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 again for all that you have been doing to support this cause!

Warm regards,

Kateryna Snisarenko

Project Communications Officer

*The names of the beneficiaries are changed to protect their identity.

Dear friends,

The school year in Ukraine is over, children and young people are having their well-deserved holidays. Thus, it is a perfect point of time to look back at the past 10 months and review all of what has been mastered and learnt. As you know from our previous report, Youth Clubs 3.0 have been functioning in 6 cities of Ukraine this year. This means that vulnerable young people in Drohobych, Smila, Dnipro, Cherkasy, Kaniv, Odesa and Kyiv got a chance to enhance their knowledge and skills needed for successful social integration as well as promotion of their social and civil rights. And this is all thanks to your support!

In this report we would like to tell you about one particular youth club from this generation, The Secret of Success Youth Club in Drohobych city of Lviv Oblast. We asked Halyna, the youth leader and facilitator of the club to share some insights about the time that children and young people spent together during the school year.

“When we first gathered a group of young people it was important to discuss how we should spend this year together. Some of them have already been participating in the youth club meetings before, so the task seemed a bit challenging. After 2 hours of brainstorming the group came up with a common decision. Together we found a balance between trainings within “How to Become Successful” youth program and other fun development activities as well”, - Halyna shared.

She continued: “Starting from October we have been meeting every week in a cozy room of the center of social services, talked about serious things and played games (as some people could think at the first glance). “Who am I?”, “Why I am different from the others”, “How can I improve myself” – these are only a few crucial questions young people aimed to find answers during the training module “Me as a Personality”. One time Alina*, a 15 years old club participant, told me that she could not even imagine how many emotions and feelings humans can experience!”

Usually, after 4 or 5 trainings we would have outdoor activities. We visited a library and a theater. I think that young people would probably not visit these places by themselves. I was very glad when Zhenia, a 14 years old girl, said that “a book makes us weep and laugh, deepens our knowledge and expands our outlook”.

Within the “Me, Us and Them” training module young people practiced communication skills and received basic knowledge about nonverbal language. “What is the difference between love and a crash?” – this question was asked most often when we spoke about love, long-term relationships and building a family. To learn more about professional choice we visited an employment office where career professionals shared with young people the secrets of finding the right occupation matching to their personal characteristics.

When we analyzed social rights and learnt about civic activism we asked the city mayor to meet with young people. Participants expressed their vision of development and prosperity for the city, they spoke about children's leisure arrangements in their after-school time and during summer holidays. It was very important for them not only to discuss their views, but to have an opportunity to present them to people who are making decisions.

We also organized a series of creative workshops, in particular, a decoupage workshop, a beadwork workshop, painting session and the most special one: Easter-eggs ornamenting workshop. Decorating eggs is a part of traditional Easter celebrations in Ukraine and young people had a lot of fun while learning the history of Easter eggs and practicing ornamenting with an experienced craftsman.  

To arrange an exciting celebration of the youth club year end we have recently invited young people to dolphinarium. It was a really memorable event celebrating the achievements we reached all together! Young people were full of positive emotions and were very thankful for such an opportunity”.

“But still, all of these are just a small part of our youth club story. Now we have summer holidays and hope to meet youth club “old-timers” and even more newcomers in September!”, - concluded Halyna.

The Secret of Success Youth Club opened the door of opportunities for 24 children and young people this year. Many of them are deprived of parental care, some are youngsters from internally displaced families and families of people engaged in military service for the Anti-Terroristic Operation (ATO) in Eastern Ukraine. Thanks to your kind support they had a chance to develop their life skills, build their confidence, find friends and much much more!

As pointed above, in September The Secret of Success and other youth clubs will renew their activities and we will continue providing mini-grants to support them. Therefore, we hope for your further support and send you our gratefulness for what you have already helped achieve along with the wishes of warm and energetic summer!

Warm regards,

Igor Nosach

Project Manager

and the team of Partnership for Every Child

* The names of the beneficiaries are changed to protect their confidentiality.