YTNF :: News

Autumn is traditionally time for summing up, collecting harvest and celebrating successful year. IVO “SVIT-Ukraine” is also collecting harvest and summing up results of the year of volunteering: international summer projects in Ukraine took place, several projects with long-term volunteers; Ukrainian young people attended international volunteer projects in different countries of Europe. And it is also time for planning projects and cooperation for next year. That is why we are organizing our Oktoberfest – fair of volunteering!

If you
– Were campleader or participant in international volunteer project
– Have ideas for cooperation
– Or just interested to know, what is volunteering and what opportunities exist in Ukraine, and how to get involved

Than join us on October 12! The fair will be organized in form of open space, when participants will have opportunity to attend different workshops, proposed by the organizers, and also propose topics for discussion themselves. The program will include: information about SVIT-Ukraine and Service Civil International, types and kinds of international volunteer projects, outcomes of international volunteer projects in Ukraine in 2008, possibilities for networking and cooperation, development of volunteering at local level, volunteer events/ activities on certain topics (social, ecological, educational etc)., and other. Oktoberfest is organized in the framework of “Creation of Coordinating Centers on Volunteering” project with financial support of Zukunftsfonds.

And missing a warmer jacket – this was one of the points of recent PMT meeting of SVIT, which took place in Kharkiv on September 13th. Tea and coffee was helpful for warming up, as well as vivid discussions about past summer projects, upcoming events, ideas and proposals for the future, Dobre razom 2 and film on life of foreigners in Ukraine, planning Oktoberfest, starting projects with EVS volunteers and necessary preparation, activities on historic Jewish cemetery in Chernovtsy – completed and for the future, new partners in different regions of Ukraine, developing web-site as info resource on volunteering in Ukraine, PEACE seminar, and main big question mark – what will happen with YTNF 2. Details...

In the city of Kharkov, Ukraine, 10 volunteers representing 8 countries met for Dobre Razom 2 workcamp presented by SVIT Ukraine (www.svit-ukraine.org). This project was a sequel to Dobre Razom, a project which taught the negative effects of stereotypes and how to overcome them to school children in Lvov and Kharkov, Ukraine. The goal for this year’s project was much different yet very simple. With one professional camera, 10 active volunteers with the help of countless people from Kharkov would film material which would become a video to be shown all over Ukraine to reduce the level of racism and xenophobia. This was accomplished and more. The workcamp started with 2 days devoted to the study of the topic of racism. Details...