Youth 4 Youth: Building Skills, Transforming Lives

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