Overcast weather and feeling sleepy due to it, being late and out of coffee. Probably not the best start for a successful meeting. But we had it. On the February week-end of 2 and 3 a group of activists met in Kharkiv to discuss what is happening in SVIT in the coming months, plan upcoming activities like YTNF film festival and training on project management, take a look at new SVIT web-site and decide about its future update and new features. Representatives of partner organizations “Pechenegy” and “Friends of Gomolshansky forest” joined part of the meeting. Details...

When part of the world was actively preparing for Christmas, and the other part was actively finalizing all possible things and looking forward to New Year night, we were having our fundraising training. Small group of volunteers met in Svyatogorsk on December 14th to have five intensive days of learning program. Our trainer Oleg Grishin from Youth Employment Center (Donetsk) has prepared extensive program, covering such issues as strategic planning, branding and PR, different types of donors and how to work with them, differences and similarities of fundraising from governmental and business at local level, and international foundations; reporting and communication with donors. Details...

This year some volunteers of SVIT have joined the traditional for ECC “Bakhmat” ethno-cultural trip to a village of Zvanivka, located in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. The special thing about this village is, that half of its residents are ‘native’ for Donetsk region, and half of them are coming from somewhere what is Poland now. After 2nd World War, when USSR and Poland were fixing countries’ territories, some Ukrainian land was given to Poland and the other way around – of course without people. They were moved elsewhere, as complete villages. In Zvanivka ‘native’ and ‘western’ Ukrainians peacefully coexist already for about 50 years. Details...

On December 31st, when everyone was busy with preparing for New Year, a group of volunteers in Artemovsk was busy preparing something different – a New Year celebration for orphans at the special boarding school for mentally disabled children in Paraskoveyevka. Two local companies have generously provided presents for the children – sets with stationery from “Altair” Ltd., and fruits from Artemovsk Trade Complex. Details...

by Lovis Assmann Radu Bajureanu, 33, Member of "Board of Directors" at Association of International Volunteering, Moldova Radu, why did you decide to come to this seminar, particularly to this seminar "Discover, Join & Act"? - well, in my country I do the same work, I want to share the experience, I want to gain new experience and I want to see how this work works in other countries and I want to see how far Moldova did a good job. So it was more for your personal social advantage as a leading work craft in the work you do in Moldova - yes Alright. Details...

Pre-story: during the "Discover, join and act!" festival some of the participants were interviewed about the seminar and impressions of some workshops they attended. Below and in the next articles you will see the interviews/Julia Myasyshcheva/ By Lovis Assmann Interview with Mariya Stepanova, 16, student, Belarus Why did you decide to come to this seminar? - because i wanted to make new experiences and get new knowledge and also to meet people and improve my English. Why particularly this seminar? - because I also wanted to hear about experiences from volunteers from other countries. Details...

International seminar-festival brought together 35 participants from Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, Moldova, Switzerland, Great Britain, Russian Federation, Georgia, Belarus, Italy, Poland, the USA and Turkey to spend together one week of intensive learning, discussions and exercises, under the motto “Discover, join and act!”. The topics of the seminar were fight against racism and xenophobia, education on human rights, social inclusion and active role of volunteers in their communities. The seminar took place not far from the town of Liptsy, Kharkiv region, December 2-9, 2007. Details...

This was our final vote – and the voting was just formal, we were unanimous in our consensus. It was 2nd annual meeting since SVIT its official registration and 6th annual meeting since the organization was founded. And this time we grew by 1/4 at a time – very productive year. Other outcomes in numbers – 7 international workcamps, 3 new projects with long-term volunteers, first outgoing long-term volunteer, 3 PMT members are elected as board members of SVIT, among them the vice-president. All this was happening during the general assembly of SVIT, which took place in the framework of “Dobre razom” seminar, which took place in Kharkiv on November 17-18. Details...

Society, racism, acknowledge, fear, take action, reflection, stereotype, colour, prejudice, stigma On the 28th of October, 11 creative volunteers met to discuss the continuation of the Dobre Razom project. It started with a presentation of the study visit. Afterwards we discussed how we can create an exhibition and what we want to have in this exhibition. It brought us to the idea of public installation consisting of banners to get more people to think about the problem of racism. Details...

During the EurIdea festival 2007 in Wernsdorf several PMT members from Moldova, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine were interviewed about their involvement in the project, how they see themselves developing and about the future of cooperation. The lines below reveal us what YTNF is for its volunteers. Details...

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