Report of the workcamp “English for Children” (Berdyansk)

10-24.08 2005

The goal of the project was to give basic knowledge of English language and possibility to share different cultures and traditions with children with limited opportunities (children from rural areas, socially disadvantaged children, orphans).

The workcamp was held 10-24^th of August in Berdyansk at the youth summer camp “Orlyonok” on the Azov see. There were 11 foreign participants from 6 countries, and 4 Ukrainians including camp-leaders. The project was focused on teaching children English language.

A week before the camp should start, the local partner refused to host the camp, and to replace it additional funding was needed (originally it was planned that local partner, and not SVIT should cover costs for food and accommodation, thus no money were available).

The board took decision not cancel workcamp in any way, besides this, board decided to collect donations from SVIT members for food, local coordinator should had found a venue for the camp. Finally, in cooperation with local city authorities, the accommodation, and food partially were found.

The responsibilities of volunteers were divided into two main parts: playing games in English with children on the beach, and teaching interactive half an hour lessons in the afternoon. The topics of lessons, methods of teaching, and games were prepared by campleaders, and further worked out in advance together with the group. Moreover, volunteers participated in some evening events, performances, concerts, made presentation of their countries, and organized the Day of Friendship between nations.

The volunteers lived in stone nice houses together with kids. Beds, linens and sheets were provided. Meals were served in the canteen of the summer camp.

Free time was mostly in the evenings and on weekend. Several city excursions were organized, attending sight-seeing places, catholic cathedral, Berdyansk spit (natural preserved area), boat tour, yacht trip, night clubs, and parties. As study part sessions, volunteers got some information about SVIT, Ukraine, had some occasions to talk with local people. Additionally, there was a meeting with local youth committee, and volunteers attended training, which was organized for local youth leaders.

The group consisted mostly of girls (only 3 males were among participants), however, the group was very easy to organize, there were no conflicts; all not clear situations and problems were discussed, and solved together. Participants of the camp tried to help and support each other in different situations when help was needed. There were no communication problems because of high level of English of almost all participants of the camp (for 5 participants English was native language), and some of the participants also spoke Russian. Is some cases, when it was needed, translation was provided. According to evaluation forms, each volunteer had possibility to be involved in decision-making process, and none was left outside of camp issues.

Because of the problems with organization of the camp, it was hard for campleaders to focus on group dynamics during the first days of the camp due to arising logistical problems, nevertheless, later on the team started to form. Another difficulty for campleaders was lack of sleeping places in the camp. Because of changing original place of the camp, it was impossible to have space for all the participants, so it was decided that campleaders will not stay overnight in the camp, because they were locals. So, it influenced group dynamics as well, but not much.

There was no clear division of responsibilities among campleaders. Additional difficulty was that no one of the two campleaders could spend the whole two weeks straight at the camp. The camp was divided in some parts, and each campleader was responsible for certain days. Sometimes both campleaders were at the camp, sometimes only one of them. This fact also had an impact on group atmosphere, but it was compensated by different common activities with volunteers.

There was no additional evaluation besides evaluation forms.

Partially the main problems were as listed above, and there were some others:

·  Hassle and unclear situation with accommodation during the first days

·  Campleaders could not spend 24 hours with volunteers, and not every day both of them were at the camp

·  There was no specific group of children who wished to learn English, instead there were too many children that came to spend free time and participate to activities, without particular desire to learn something

·  Children and camp staff were not informed in advance about the possibility to learn English, and the English lessons were not in the program of the camp officially.

If such camps would be organized in future, it is possible to make some improvements according to the difficulties of the current one. Firstly, the organizational side should be better prepared, clear arrangements of all needed conditions with local partners stated in official agreement. Secondly, informing the camp about the program of the volunteer workcamp in advance including it into the official agenda and program of activities. Thirdly, additional funds for food, and emergencies should be reserved.

Some advertisement of the camp caused positive reaction among local authorities, and deputies of the city council. There were some preliminary agreements about similar camp next year, but currently they are not concrete, and additional work to develop them is needed. Likewise, the director of the camp told about an idea to organize permanent English class, invite several specialists for teaching group of children who will be focused on learning English. However, this idea is still vague and needs lots of clarifications and negotiations.

Andriy Kurasov