This blog is for YMCA Calgary youth delegates to share their experiences as they visit our partners at YMCA Ukraine. International YMCA partnerships allow us to build global awareness through real relationships. We share knowledge and resources while we learn from each other. Young leaders develop skills and confidence to advance peace, social justice and dignity in their own community.
Here is a photo of me and some of the kids I was running a camp with at School #8. This school is quite different for Ukraine because it is a mixed abilities and disabilities school, something which is not so common in Ukraine but slowly growing. We ran various activities and educational programs with the kids at this school and I had a lot of help from Roma and Olya (YMCA Lutsk volunteers) without them it would not have been possible. :)
Awesome time in Zdolbuniv. We met up with Oksana and Victor Melnik at the train station with 5 other scouts. We headed to the YMCA office to make preparations for camp and meet the other children and leaders. I had no idea they were having a camp, I thought we were just going to visit their site! We took the bus out and walked with the bags, tents and food through farmers fields. The camping site was great with a volleyball net from two trees and good cover from the sun (it was about 35 degrees).
The children accepted us instantly and we did avtivites with a career councilor for 30 minutes and then scouting guidelines, volleyball, cooking over the fire ichiban soup with sandwiches and of course tea! We fetched water from a farmers well and during our volleyball game 3 cows, and 2 goats were hearded straight through by women 2 elderly ladies straight out of the middle ages! The volleyball game was briefly postpones for use to cover the cow patties on the "court" with dirt! This didn't throw any of the children off and they wondered why I was taking a photo.
Last night we stayed with a lovely family. Three generations in one house. Grandmother and two daughters, one spoke english and had survived a winter while volunteering in Saskachewan. They each had a daughter, one 14 and one 2 years old who told Kaitlin in English to "eat porridge"! We discovered that the one daughters musician husband is from Austria, while my boyfriend Gernot is from Salzburg. She makes homeade soaps and gave us one to take home with a cd of her husbands traditional music.
We have had two quick nights in Dubno with a lovely host: Ludmyla (the previous Ukraine YMCA president). She is taking very good care of us and ensuring we get a taste of some traditional Ukrainian food! 
We had many guides; Victor and Mikhael who brought us to their scouts cottage, and Ola who brought us to an old castle! We also met a young priest and his family and climbed the bell tower with his daughter to see a great view of the entire city! 
The basement of the church has deep Soviet history; many Ukrainian patriots were killed here for demonstrating Ukrainian pride during the Soviet times here in Dubno. Ludmyla showed us some videos about sports day and Ten Sing performences.
We are waking up in Lviv this morning and accomplished a lot of sight seeing yesterday! We met Lesia and Oxanna yesterday and they were so kind and spent the day with us showing us the best parts of the city and talking about the YMCA here! We won't be seeing any programs in Lviv, most children are away for the summer and they are doing maintence on the toilet in the YMCA building. 
We also met a volunteer Peter who is involved in the music and dancing side of the YMCA. He plays in rock bands and is currently involved in a 500 person flash mob which will be performing in Kiev in september! He has asked Kaitlin to stay and dance and train with them all summer and be apart of the performance in September! 
This morning we are meeting up with Yulia who will show us around a bit more and discuss the YMCA in greater detail. This afternoon we are taking the train to Dubno to see some programs there, hopefully they are running! The hostel here is lovely and we were fortunate to have a seven person room all to ourselves because it is mid week. One of the workers here told us we were the first canadians to stay here, so she was very excited! We have 4 days left here and are coming up with some great ideas for our presentation when we get back! See you soon! 
Kaitlin and I are back from camp! We spent the last 10 days at Lake Svityaz with 36 kids (and no WiFi). The bus ride out to camp was the first opportunity to get to know the kids, although it was challenging with the language barrier (can anyone make of the word hot dog in the picture?). 
One of the highlights of camp was the talent show on the last evening. Groups and individuals all had a chance to perform skits, songs, jokes, poems, traditional dancing, and TenSing (modern dancing and singing). 
We did an introductory game with some Canadian culture and flag freeze tag (with Canadian flags that they got to keep). Marta also had us lead English camp songs!
The counselors and children did very well with the rain, setting up a big tarp for eating under and heading off to the disco during the day for games and dancing. It rained for 7 days straight and suddenly we had great weather the last 3 days (35 degrees on the last day)! 
Finally we had an opportunity to swim and Kaitlin taught lessons to groups of 7-8 campers. This was a big hit just like in Canada, the only difference being that she had a translator and was teaching in open water! She started with getting them to blow bubbles, as many of the kids were new to swimming, and worked up to front crawl. 
I had the opportunity to teach 4 different fitness segments. This was well received by the older campers who wanted to work off Paulina’s excellent cooking, and the younger ones who love to move. One of the teens later told Ivanna that she hopes to be a fitness instructor one day! I played a lot of sports with the kids when we had free time, such as Frisbee and soccer. Sport is a great way to build relationships. One morning I even brought out the TRX to show the older teenage girls. Many of them are interested in being more active. I hope the YMCA in Ukraine can start a female floorball team!
Joey has been an excellent host while we’ve been in Ukraine and invaluable at camp. We were able to talk to a lot more kids with him around. He helped us with travel preparation and educated us on personal safety in Ukraine. We got to see a program he started at school and play reverse checkers and table tennis with the kids.
