Thursday, October 27, 2011

Some Days It Is All Worth It….Crazy Fun!!!

Today was a day for the record books.  Several weeks a non profit in Lugansk, East Ukraine Civic Iniatives (EUCCI), asked the Peace Corps Volunteers in the area if someone and a few of us were available to make a couple of presentations.  One to adults about how NGO’s, youth and the internet interact.  And the other was who youth and schools utilize the internet, together.  I did the first one and Kurt took the second one.

DSCN0901   DSCN0900

It was great.  I did eight slides and talked about how students help communities and how communities help students.  My translator was awesome and with no practice we quickly found a great rhythm.  The audience was reactive and interactive, which made for a very fun 45 minutes.   Things could not have been better for my first presentation in Ukraine all by myself.

DSCN0918

The group that we were working with is a service orientated group for youth in Ukraine called LUGARI.  Service orientated groups for youth and adults are hard to find in Ukraine, so it was great to see 40 youth learning about how to help and give back.  And of course, they all practiced their English with me.

DSCN0920  

Here are the kids working in small groups and collaborating on webpage design.  Very fun!!!

   DSCN0931

Kurt is a PCV near me who helped with the translation of the initial grant for the funding of this project.  He and Alyona have worked together quite a bit on this project and it was great to see it come full circle for them.

0 comments: