STRONG-EQUAL! (Berdyansk) 

21.08-03.09 2005

The camp was conducted in Berdyansk city on the Azov see. The purpose of project is to raise awareness and level of knowledge of young people on gender issues, initiate discussion on roles of male and female in society. This subject does not receive enough attention in Ukraine, and is crucially important due to changes in society and lifestyle, cultural transformation. Target group of this educational project is students of Berdyansk University and young people spending vacation in resorts of Berdyansk (summer camps).

Total amount of volunteers in camp made 12 persons. There were 6 foreign volunteers and 6 Ukrainian ones, including campleaders. Foreign volunteers presented such countries as Sweden, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Ukrainian volunteers presented the following cities: Berdyansk, Artemovsk, Donetsk and Kiev. Mainly all volunteers were students of social faculties. This was crucial that volunteers easily found a common language that was important for more effective work. There were two campleaders in group – Olga Karelova, who was mostly engaged in the organizational work and Victoria Zhurbyk who was responsible for work with group.

The general work of camp consisted of two parts – practical and theoretical.

Theoretical part consisted of trainings on human rights, social stereotypes, prevention of violence, and also on social conflicts. Training on the human rights was conducted by Victoria Zhurbyk. Different interactive methods were used in it for explanation of issues that was crucial to make the training effective. Training on the social stereotypes was conducted by manager of the department of international relations of the Azov regional institute of management, trainer on gender Natalia Kalinina. Volunteers knew about stereotypes and methods of their extinction. Training passed fast with the stormy discussions, which continued after training.

Training on the prevention of violence was also interesting. It was conducted by head of Social Department of helping for young people, women and family. This training reminded probably a form of seminar because of the language barrier. Peculiarity of trainer’s style was giving many official facts from the life of Ukraine. Volunteers were able to compare to the situation in their country with ours and also got acquainted with the problems of women and children in Ukraine.

A seminar on conflict consisted of theoretical part, which included the reasons of conflicts and methods of their prevention. Different role games were conducted which gave possibility to experience more in depth situation with young people and types of conduct in conflict persons on the personal example.

Practical part was consisted of meetings with the local young people. The first meeting of volunteers with the local leaders took place in the urban executive committee at the round table. During the round table the presentation of SCI and SVIT took place, after we presented our camp and volunteers. They told about some measures in their country on maintenance of gender balance. Local young people were shocked by such stories, because in our country this still is to be developed. There were a lot of questions to them with the following discussions.

The second meeting took place with club «Sodrugestvo», during their summer school on leadership. Volunteers prepared the placards, on which put the issues, touching gender balance in economy, policy, family. Young people were interested in these stories and found much information for the reflection.

Very interesting for volunteers and local young people turned out meeting with the women organization “Women business”. A head of organization told about the problems of women in our town and in Ukraine in general, possibilities of solving these problems, state of legislative policy of defense of women and children.

Unfortunately the last meeting with the students of local university turned out to be less productive.

During conducting of discussions and trainings a language barrier was a basic problem. Constantly it discussions had to be translated, which made it slow.

There was enough time to conduct with volunteers a few excursions on city and on some cities of Ukraine – Zaporozhie and Donetsk. Mostly Zaporozhia city pleased to volunteers with its Kazaks historical museum and hydro power plant, which is considered now as the eighth miracle of world.