“Life is all about learning”

Stories of people who studied in the ToT course within the “Young Diversity Ambassadors” program

In our previous article, we wrote about the ToT course for trainers and facilitators within the “Young Diversity Ambassadors” program. We spoke about its structure and its core values and explained how it helps young people in their training activities, work, and daily life.

Now we want to tell the stories of three people participating in the ToT course, of their journeys, and of the training course changing their lives.

Legal literacy for children. Ksenia Ukolova.

I am Ksyusha, and I am 20. I study law at the National University of Ostroh Academy. I originally come from Rivne. Thanks to my active student life I joined the Students League of the Ukrainian Bar Association. Starting as a volunteer, I am now the head of the organization.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, I had been abroad. It was hard for me to be away from home, as I couldn’t continue my activities there. I wanted to help and feel that I belong. I tried to engage in remote activities, and that was the least I could do for my people. Organizing events for foreigners had become my civic duty at that point, but my people were far away…

In December 2022 I couldn’t take it anymore, so I returned home. I started looking for opportunities to return to the activist environment. It is such a peculiar story. I love woods and all things green, and I needed to take a mountain trip. I longed for the Carpathians. I was skimming through an e-mail newsletter with opportunities when I saw this pink STAN poster advertising the “Young Diversity Ambassadors” program. I paid attention to color, but it didn’t impress me. I thought it would be about everything at once and nothing at all. Then I received another e-mail newsletter and saw this poster once again. I looked at the STAN pages, learned who they were and what they did and I was like, “OK, cool!”. I realized that it was not for the sake of appearances but for the result. I remember how surprised I was that it was held in Khata-Maysternia, which I hadn’t noticed at first. God, I would go to the mountains!

I loved the first basic workshop. I liked that the topics of human rights and arts and culture were put together. From my childhood days, I had trouble combining art and law, so I was torn between them. The second workshop was much worse, and I worried that after my feedback (in the end we filled out the forms) STAN would never cooperate with me again. I didn’t filter my words.

So I was surprised when I received an invitation to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina. When we returned, exchanged feedback, and the selection process for the ToT began, I realized I fell in love the community. I understood that not only did I learn theory but also learned from people’s experience. Take, for instance, Sasha Voytenko and Yana Malyha. Their experience has guided me and shaped my perception. I also got to know Yaroslav Minkin, one of the people who created the philosophy of STAN. I saw where it came from  and told myself, “I want to adopt this.” That’s how I got into the ToT course.

What were my expectations? I wanted to learn more about group dynamics (before the course I had practical experience but lacked the theory). There were much more unexpected results. New contacts and complex information in the ToT format which was much more advanced compared to the introductory workshops. I also noticed that the participants were using external ideas to understand themselves better. In the evening after the workshops, many people said “I had noticed it but I didn’t know it about myself” or “I didn’t know I’ve got it”. Through the lens of activities, people explored their inner world.

I use ToT experience in two main areas. I am the head of the organization, and I constantly use my experience to build the dynamics or give feedback when working with my team. After every event and in the moments of crises we come together and solve the issues and ponder upon them using non-standard practices.

I also work on legal literacy reform in orphanages. The existing course “Civic education” doesn’t provide the kids with the necessary skills and knowledge, that being critical thinking and the working principles of modern society. That’s why we decided to focus on the law literacy. From the experience of our group and the survey we conducted, I can say that in the majority of orphanages and foster homes, legal literacy is limited to “you have a right to a name and a right to find your parents, and “the age of criminal responsibility is 14 years”. Wow, what a “great” specter helping children to trust the state and use its services.

I combined my vocation and knowledge with approaches and methods I learned in STAN to create a ten-module study program. It aims to make the children understand their rights and teach them to use these rights. It helps children to understand if their rights are violated and where should they go, teaches them how to get their first documents and how to communicate with the police…

Children deprived of parental care are artificially isolated. We are now fighting the bureaucracy to get the integrated course through the walls of the orphanage.

The power of the small steps. Anton Yurchenko.

I come from Kamianka in the Cherkasy region. I have a degree in teaching Ukrainian language and literature. After graduating from university in 2014 I returned to my city to found the youth organization “New Generation of the Kamianka Region”.

All my work is related to youth activism. It energizes me. Many relatives and friends tell me, “Why are you doing this? It takes so much of your time and energy.” The truth is, when I see the results, when I inspire someone, that, in turn, inspires me twice as much. Then I understand what do I live for.

I live in a small town and our main target audience is teens. The active youth in my community study in high school. Then they leave the town for the university, and few of them return. Even if they return, they are starting families and looking for jobs, and they lack time for activism. That’s a problem many small communities share.

I would love them to return, as my workload is too big. It is hard, and often my morale is low. I keep saying I wash my hands of it all. But I don’t, in fact, wash my hands of it all. I rest a few days and understand I can’t live without it. At that point, it has become a part of me.

In 2020 we won a grant to create a youth space in the community. We have had this space for 4 years. Our main focus is informal education and quality leisure activities for youth. We speak about important social issues. For instance, last November we organized a workshop course on tolerance with Olena Grygoryak from the NGO “Insight”. It caused a scandal in the community. Many people with “post-soviet upbringing” condemned us for making “LGBT activists teach children”, “the world is sick”, etc. After that, I was dubbed the main organizer of gay pride in the community, and the youth space was called a “sect”. I am really glad that the youth working in the organization and attending the ambassadors’ events stand their ground. Some even managed to get their parents who were aggressively against people with different sexual orientations to change their views. They convinced their parents that it is actually OK, that LGBT has always been here and will always exist, and they need to accept them. When you hear such stories, you realize that your effort is valuable and you are not wasting your time. I am really glad because small as they may seem, these steps bring the big changes closer.

Last July I stumbled upon a registration form for the basic YDA course in Volodymyr. I believe it was fate. My colleague and I filled out the form because we were interested in the topics of the course, such as decolonization and feminism. We knew we wanted to promote these ideas in our community, and we wanted to boost our knowledge and skills. We liked it a lot. It was great that we didn’t waste these three days idle as tourists.

Then I registered for the ToT and I don’t regret this at all. ToT really helped me to better grasp the idea and structure of the workshops. Until then we had worked intuitively. We had created the workshops based on our perspective and tried to share as much information as we could. Sometimes it wasn’t well received. ToT has taught us how it needs to be done. One of the trainers said that the workshop doesn’t need to answer all the questions. On the contrary, it rather needs to inspire the participants to learn more. It has totally shifted my perspective. It is better to tell less than to overwhelm the participants with all the information.

I love my job. However, I hate working with papers, as it wastes a lot of time and energy. Still, I enjoy it a lot and I feel like I belong. I believe if you feel like you belong, it is easier for you to overcome any possible challenges.

Ripples in the water. Iryna Rotar.

I come from Rubizhne in the Luhansk region. I have lived in Ivano-Frankivsk for two years. I came here in April 2022. I started volunteering in “SpivDiia. Clothes” and has later became an initiative coordinator. Our whole team consists of internally displaced persons. We are in charge of the space that we dubbed “Store of Kindness”.

Most of us have many clothes we no longer need. We follow the narrative that this is trendy while that is not, and it encourages us to make lots of purchases. Some people can’t do this and they really need clothes. I also faced it when I came to Ivano-Frankivsk with my cat, two embroidered shirts, and documents. I had nothing, so I got some clothes from the intiative as I had no other choice.

Clothes are such an essential need. Even now, after two years, new people keep coming. Elderly people started to visit our space. The other day an elderly woman came, saying, “Girls, I need some skirts for the church.” And it’s so scary; now people can’t even cover their basic needs. When I speak about this, I feel upset.

In summer 2022 I learned of STAN. At first, I met Anton Buravsky, who had been delivering humanitarian aid to our space: car seats, baby food, and diapers (back then diapers and baby food were worth their weight in gold). Anton had been helping us when we needed to ship something by car… We talked, and I kept asking him if they had some job for me. Then Marichka Keliy invited me to help them with a little project. Later Dmytro Kuznietsov invited me to the project “The Way of Resilience”.

I had already worked there when I saw the announcement about the Training of Trainers program within the “Young Diversity Ambassadors” program. I called Dmytro, asking him if I could enroll, if it doesn’t create overlapping interests. He told me, “Everything’s fine. On the contrary, it’s great”. And I was busy working with my area of responsibility. I wasn’t sure if I had time for ToT.

At the first block of ToT, I was thinking, “These people are so experienced. They are all so serious. He is a trainer, and so is she. Lord, what am I even doing here?” It was hard, as there was a lot of new information. But life is all about learning. I tried to connect the dots: if you will do this or that, what would be the results? It’s like a game of chess: you need to think ahead, allowing for different possibilities and their outcomes. Your words or actions will spread across like ripples in the water.

ToT also affects me internally. I love the words of Solomiya Zinets-Matsyshyn, “Here you will hear many ideas which may be different from yours. But that doesn’t mean that your worldview will change. It will expand.” The more I learn, the more my worldview expands.

Then we led our first workshops. I am excited by the youth I worked with. I like how they think and how mature they are. I would like to work in small communities, as I believe that young people in small communities lack the resources. Take, for instance, Ivano-Frankivsk and a village in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

I am doing this to help other people grow wings. We all need support and empowerment, and it is essential not to be alone. Getting back to the workshops we are leading: first of all people get to know each other, connect, and work together. They will get acquainted at the workshop, and then they will change things for the better together. These are the ripples in the water I mentioned. I would love to be a part of this, to be a grain of sand that contributes to positive social changes.

The project “A network for democracy: Building a future with the European leaders of tomorrow” is implemented by the NGO “STAN” and ActionAid in partnership with the NGO “Center for Social Transformations TENET”, NGO “Insight”, NGO “Chernivtsi Association “Zakhyst” with the support of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Denmark). This project is a part of the program “Young Diversity Ambassadors”

This is a program for youth and youth workers to strengthen social cohesion to create an inclusive, peaceful society, minimize the likelihood of conflicts arising between different groups, and accelerate the integration of young IDPs. The program is implemented by the NGO “STAN” in partnership with the Alliance for Rights, Equality and International Solidarity “ActionAid” with the support of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), Global Fund for Children (USA), Terre Des Hommes (Germany) and IM Swedish Development Partner (Sweden).