World Map Project Tocuz in Moldova

FLEX alumni from Moldova have also taken a big part in Global Youth Service Day! Alexandr Hriptun’08, and Maxim Grama’12 organized a very unusual project named "World map Project Tocuz". It took place from April 10 through April 27 in Chisinau and Tocuz District

On April 10 ten volunteers took part in the seminar “Team Work and Group Dynamics in Community Oriented Projects”. In the beginning of the seminar Michael Watts, Peace Corps volunteer of business development program talked about the projects that he is working on right now, while on his term in Moldova, about projects he was a part of back in the USA. Michal’s commitment to the idea of volunteering served as a great inspirational example to the participants. After Michael’s inspirational speech, Liliana Butnaru, a freelance trainer and former Organization and Community Development Program Manager at Peace Corps Moldova started the group dynamics part of the seminar. The participants were divided into several groups and played several teambuilding games. The game was followed by reflection period when the participants expressed their opinions on the game and how this experience can be transferred onto community projects management. Liliana also encouraged participants to stay active in the life of their communities and follow the path of volunteering. Afterwards, Alexandr Hriptun talked about Global Youth Service Day and the very World Map Project Tocuz. 

On April 13 Alexandr Hriptun and Nicu Gaibu'12 travelled to Tocuz district to prepare the background of the map, together with the children, which was used for the further steps of creating the map. On April 20 the group of 10 volunteers travelled to the school for the first big part of the project implementation. The volunteers were divided into two groups, one group was organizing various game activities with the children outside, while another group was creating the map grid and started working on the outline of the map. After lunch children of the boarding school were watching a movie together with several volunteers, while the rest of volunteers were drawing the borders of the countries on the map. On April 27 the volunteers travelled to the village once more, this time having prepared a different set of activities. Another group of volunteers was painting the map together with several school children who wanted to be involved in map coloring. On May 1 Alexandr Hriptun and Gabriela Cernalev’11 visited the school once more and finalized the map, signing the names of the countries and outlining the borders.

The main goal of the project was creating the map which will be visual help in education at the boarding school, and it was achieved. The alumni established a good partnership with school administration and several organizations and people who offered support to the project. Besides the participants gained experience in working and organizing leisure activities for children from underprivileged families.

Moreover, on May 22 Alexandr Hriptun, Dragalina Birsan and Nicu Gaibu were invited to Radio Moldova to talk about “World Map Project Tocuz”. The team discussed the idea and history of the project, what was done in Tocuz, why this village and school were chosen and what further ideas can be implemented. Also, an article about “World Map Project Tocuz” and other charity projects organized starting December 2012 will be soon published on one the most visited Moldovan online platforms for women www.alllady.md.

This all is a lot of hard work and also creative ideas of a community service project! Way to go, Alexandr and Maxim! We hope that the map you created will not only serve as a useful tool, but a great memory about your big efforts and time you spent with the kids! Thank you!

Sports Day for Kids in Moscow, Russia

The Moscow GYSD Sports Day project was unfortunately delayed on May 28 but finally took place on May 19 in one of the most beautiful places of Russian capital - Gorky Park. FLEX alumni Anna Safronova, Elina Mukhametdinova and David Petrosyan organized Sports Day for the kids from a Moscow orphanage #8.

The event was organized with the help of My Dream City project  and big support from "Habibi" charity foundation of one of the senior FLEX alumni Leyla Habibova. 32 boys and girls of different ages arrived to the Gorky park on Sunday. Most of the kids have never been to this place before.

About 30 volunteers (including 2 Columbian AIESEC organization) students) organized fun sport competitions with prizes for children. Afterwards, everyone had a picnic on the grass and enjoyed beautiful sunshine and snacks. One of the volunteers played the guitar, so everyone had a chance to listen to music. Boys played soccer and frisbee, girls drew pictures with chalk and markers. Several children had a chance to visit the "Zelenaya Shkola" kids' club right in the park. This is a great place for children to learn about the nature and animals and do some fancy handcrafts.

In general, the kids spent about 3,5 hours in the park having fun and communicating with each other and the voluneers. Everyone was happy, and the main goal of the project - involvement of the kids in sports activities and showing that it is fun - was achieved.

We hope that the partnership of My Dream City project and Habibi foundation will grow only stronger, and we will have more great Moscow GYSD stories to tell you next year! 

Keep in touch with the blog! More stories are to come! ;)

"No Smoking" Campaign in Astana, Kazakhstan

We have already written about a number of projects, but it seems like we haven't written anything about projects against smoking. Well, here is one!

On May 1 (Day of Unity of all nationalities in Kazakhstan) 5 FLEX alumni including the project leader Gulnozai Mansur conducted «No smoking» campaign in the streets of Astana. Nowadays smoking is a mainstream especially among young people. Hence, the volunteers lead that creative campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of smoking. Specifically, they asked about 50 people (50% of them were teenagers) to exchange their cigarette for a candy, or a pack of cigarettes for a fruit. The volunteers also handed them brochures that reminded them about the hazards of smoking and how badly it affects not only themselves, but also the surroundings. People enthusiastically participated in the campaign, and found it useful and beneficial for their community. Hopefully, that project lead the youth for more healty life, and also taught them to be responsible citizens of the country and take care of the environment.

We hope that such creative ways of fighting against smoking will really help people give up this habbit and become healthier as well as make the World ariund better! Thank you alumni! :)

Clean-Up in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine

Another ecological GYSD event in Ukraine took place in Ivano-Frankivsk on May 1. The project "Let's Make Our River Clean" was organized by FLEX alumna Iuliia Murava.

The aim of the project was to clean the river Bystrytsia Solotvynskia. It is a very very beautiful place, and a lot of people spend a lot of time in spring and summer there. Unfortunately, nobody cleaned it in fall, and that’s why all the garbage was still there, and the area was very dirty.

7 FLEX alumni participated in this event along with 12 active members of the student union who have joined in. The volunteers have cleaned the right side of the river. There was so much garbage there, that the volunteers had to take it with one of the alumni’s car away in 2 rides. 

One of the evident positive effects of the project is that the idea of it has started a lot of other cleaning projects in Ivano-Frankivsk getting planned.

We hope that every year GYSD will attract more and more attention to the ecological issues around us. The alumni from Ukraine have showed they really care about the environment and nature, and we appreciate this a lot! Thank you!


More GYSD stories are coming soon! ;) Stay in touch!

Beach Clean-Up in Sevastopol, Ukraine

We have already written about Svitlana Buko from Ukraine and clean-up project at the Crimean coast. It turned out very successful, and now we are ready to tell you all the details about it with the help of Svitlana's report:

"On April 27 GYSD Crimean coastal up project  “Clean Beach” brought together 55 Volunteers  (8 FLEX alumni, 47 locals) to clean Fiolent National Park Beach “Small Light House”. Coastal clean-up was a great success – after several hours of work volunteers collected over 300 bags of trash!  Every piece of trash that is picked up during the Fiolent Coastal Cleanup should be a challenge for change!  

Core management team consisted of 3 volunteers – Svitlana Buko (FLEX Alumna), Ekaterina Pimenova (EcoFrest Project manager) and Elena Tsibizova (ecologist).  One month prior to the event  Managers  contacted local universities, local ecological NGOs, local office of State Administration of Protection of Natural Resources,  raised public awareness by participating in the local SevStarFM radio show and posted information in key social networks and local forums.

National park Fiolent is one of the most beautiful places in Crimea - beaches are down by the

steep cliffs with stunning vast views over the Black Sea. Beaches are hard to access due to steep cliffs and steep slopes in the landscape – these places are not usually cleaned up and are full of man-made debris due to the fact that it is a popular “wild camping sites.”  The natural beauty of the Fiolent area is the foundation of our community. It brings thousands of visitors to our coasts. It is essential to raise environmental awareness of locals, visitors, and businesses to protect our beautiful beaches.

Locals showed an impressive level of eco-awareness and responsibility. 55 volunteers registered at the social network registration page. Pre-registration was encouraged, but not mandatory. Statistics show different cities of participants: Sevastopol, Simferopol, Yalta and Moscow!  The main objective was to clean the beaches and the volunteers did just that, bringing bag after bag to the drop off points strategically marked at the top of the cliffs.  All the trash was divided into glass (green bags), plastic (blue bags), trash (black bags) – for separate trash recycling.  

"We just want to help make the Coast more beautiful," said  Katya Reznikova - one of the ladies who brought her little children with her to show them how coastal clean up is organized.  Another volunteer Valeria Zolotareva shared  "It's a great place to come with the family and have fun, so why not come down here and help keep it beautiful?"

"Trash is one of the biggest threats to the health of our sea and waterways," said Ekaterina Pimenova, local lead and eco manager of Sevastopol Ecofest. "It's here to stay unless we change our practices."  In order to raise more awareness about practices “awareness” signs were designed and produced by local business AudioMasterskaya and 3 signs were places strategically at 2 entrances to the beaches and at the bottom of the cliff, asking people to take trash back with them.

All the people  worked hard! It was a beautiful day to be a good steward of our Fiolent Coast beaches! Many volunteers banded together  and confirmed their willingness and interest to keep beaches beautiful during fall stewardship (using this project as a sample demonstration activity for future replication). The great turnout of locals and the support with trash disposal for separate trash recycling we have received from the local business Slovyanskaya Gavan’  sends a clear message:  Crimean people do care about their coastal environment.  Coastal Cleanup Day is what community impact and eco awareness is all about. Thank you to all of you who made a difference for our blue planet!

Special thanks to FLEX GYSD grant for supporting this project and brining Crimea FLEX alumni to support locals with coastal clean up! This was a tangible way to make a difference at the local level and still be a part of the World’s biggest  Global Youth Service Day!"

We thank you Svitlana for your hard work at raising eco-awareness and contribution to the Global Youth Service Day! Hope to see you at next GYSD as well! ;)

Keep in touch with our blog to read other encouraging stories! Who knows, maybe you will find the one that will become your inspiration for your first or next GYSD project! :)

GYSD in Saint Petersburg

Hello everyone! Yesterday FLEX Program celebrated its 20th anniversary all across Eurasia with the help of Social Media Party! FLEX Alumni, American Councils staff and just everyone who is inspired by FLEX tweeted and posted on Facebook about their FLEX experience for a whole day! GYSD projects and community service in general were mentioned in a huge part of those posts!

Meanwhile, our Saint Petersburg alumni organized great no-grant winning GYSD projects this year! On April 27 FLEX Alumni and students of EducationUSA Competitive College Club made their contribution to improve our community through taking active part in the FLEX for CHANGE Photo Marathon held by American Councils for International Education office in St. Petersburg. This social project was designed to increase social awareness, to focus people’s attention on different problems of the society, the ones of our city in particular, and to demonstrate creative ideas youth possess for the welfare of our community. Contestants of the Photo Marathon were invited to spend an afternoon walking around the city with their cameras looking for motivating and appealing scenes that would demonstrate the subject or the main issue of 8 topics that they had to cover. 

In total, there were three teams of 5-6 people, all of whom did a great job taking photographs and managing to cover all 8 topics successfully. The second part of the Marathon was equally exciting: through

presentation, defense and discussion the participants offered great ideas on solving particular social issues that the photos they had taken depicted, and reviewed other’s submissions. All participants received promo T-shirts and souvenirs in memory of the Marathon, and enjoyed taking part in such a gamesome, unconventional activity that enabled them to bring real change to our community in a creative, imaginative, dynamic and non-traditional way.

Here are some of the best pictures of the marathon:

Irina Vasileva ’08, Yekaterina Bondar ’08,
David Petrosyan ’10, Andrey Bayev '12
and others at Petrovskiy Park Clean Up

Also, on May 4, FLEX alumni and several non-alumni participants gathered together in St. Petersburg Petrovskiy Park to clean up the area and have a picnic. Alumni spent some time cleaning up and then had some snacks to celebrate the successfully completed clean up campaign. As a result, c. 150 L of trash were collected. 

The best accomplishment of this event was the willingness of several people who happened to be around to join in and contribute to the campaign. The alumni also encouraged people who were having picnic at the time to clean up after themselves as well, and gave them unused plastic bags which they received gratefully.

Great projects - great pictures! Art always helps tremendously in raising awareness of important issues! Way to go, Saint-Petersburg! 

Stay in touch with our blog to learn even MORE about the FLEX Global Youth Service activity which is still in action! More stories are to come! :)

Youth Engagement Forum in Mykolaiv, Ukraine

Global Youth Service Day FLEX stories are not over! There is still plenty of inspirational reports and pictures, which we hope will be an additional motivation for your community service activity! :)

By the way, for 1 and half months, our blog has reached the point of 1000 pageviews! We are very thankful to everyone who is interested in GYSD and FLEX partnership and keeps in touch with our entries! THANK YOU! :)

Our next story is about Youth Engagement Forum that took place in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.

On April 27 the event took place in Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University. It was organized by FLEX alumni Dmytro Say and Oleksandra Palagniuk for students living in rural areas of the Mykolaiv region. Representatives of 15 village schools attended the event - 45 participants (students and their teachers), 15 members of nongovernmental organizations and 10 guests (representatives of state authorities, journalists, representative of the Universtiy, etc.) attended the event. The goal of the Forum was to empower and motivate youth to be involved in community projects and be active members of their communities. Almost all work was performed in groups excluding opening and closing ceremonies.At the beginning of the Forum the attendee in groups presented their villages and school accomplishments in various spheres of life, including social, educational and ecological.

After that the participants discussed with NGO leaders the problems that they are faced with every day at the community. The second part of the Forum began with presentation of regional youth NGOs that showed their successful examples of solving youth problems.

Later, with the help of NGO leaders, the participants developed 14 action plans which were presented to the guests and all attendees. They should be carried out by participants in their communities by the end of the year of 2013.

There will also be an additional Youth Engagement Forum organized on the May 16 for 60 participants (students and teachers) from northern parts of the Mykolaiv region who could not attend the event due to the remoteness of their places from the regional center city Mykolaiv.

We hope that such educational and informational Yoiuh Forums will take place more often and develop the ideas of community service successfully in the future! Thank you Dmytro and Oleksandra for your big and impressive work!

"Rebus" Mini-books" Project in Ufa, Russia

We keep on bringing you stories about our great GYSD projects that have taken place in Eurasia! Our next story is about FLEX alumni from Russia who have organized the "Rebus" Mini-book" project!

Alumni came up with an idea of the project during their visits to the orphanages in Ufa.  They decided that mini-book “Rebus” will be created for children, who live in orphanages, rehabilitation centers and children homes. 

"Rebus" is sort of a riddle, where the words are presented as pictures with letters and numbers. Solving a riddle develops creative and logical thinking, teaches how to think out of box, trains visual memory and the correct spelling. The child learns to determine patterns, which broadens its vocabulary. 

The approximate number of beneficiaries was 500 children (each mini- book can be taken into pieces and each children can get 2-4 riddles from one book).

This project was the opportunity for FLEX Alumni and other volunteers to create the family environment in orphanages and make it easier for children to live in the modern world, where they will have to make unusual decisions as fast as they can.

FLEX Alumni cooperated with the students from Moscow State Humanitarian University named after M. Shokhov and the university gave the studios and equipment for the team. Moreover, the organization “Fund of support of the national Bashkir cinema” gave 3000 rubles to create mini-books.  FLEX Alumni also cooperated with USG Alumni – IREX, Business for Russia. 

The presentation of the project took place on April 26 and 27. FLEX alumni organized art classes with them. Also, the mini-books wete sent to the other orphanages in Bashkortostan. At the end of the class, children created their own riddles and solved them with their friends.

The front cover and riddles were created by  Diana Bikbaeva ’10. The riddles were created by Karina Khaibrahmanova ’11,Kamila Danilova ’10, Mikhail Ivanov ’11  and Mila Savelyeva ’09.

This is a great example of how simple ideas turned into something really exciting and useful for kids! Thank you dear Ufa alumni for your GYSD activity and a big contribution to th development of cimmunity service!

"I've Got the Spirit" Project

GYSD's 25th Anniversary was a huge success! The number of countries participating went up to 135, and there were many more projects organized in Eurasia!

Let's take a look at the projects that celebrated Global Youth Service Day - 2013! We have already written about the preparations of Natia Sharikadze's project "I've Got the Spirit" that took place in Tbilisi, Georgia.

On April 27 there was a training/lecture about Georgian Cultural Heritage Preservations and its problems

for 50 participating students. Invited speaker from The Agency Ketevan Digmelashvili spoke to the audience. Later the students had discussion with Natia Sharikadze about the concept of volunteering and what it means to people.

Next day, students traveled to Armaztsikhe to help clean the historic place. 5 Representatives (one expert and 4 museum staff members) were at the place to help/guide the students. Volunteers had 2 tasks:

Taking out the grass (weeding) from the important monuments such as: the pedestal of the pagan god, the base of the unique pagan temple from II-III century, wine basement from 1st century and bathroom chambers from BC II Century, moving rocks

from the inside of the historic monument King’s bathroom with 5 chambers (from II-III Century) outside of the fence that was around it, cleaning area from trash.

The project raised awareness about the Cultural and Historic Heritage preservations among its beneficiaries, who now consider that volunteering is important and in personal talks they mentioned that they never thought that they could help sustain the history. Also, the project helped National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservations to improve the condition at one of the heritage sites. 

The project got a media coverage from from TV9 (08.10.12)

There is also an album of the event on International Spark Program’s Official Facebook Page.

In total, the project involved more than 100 people which is a very good result. Also, more events in partnership with the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservations are expected in the future.

Thank you so much Natia Sharikadze, Shorena Megrelishvili, Marika Kurdadze, Anjela Pakhlajian, Tamar Basilaia, Tornike Kuchava, and Anna Abesadze for your great contribution to GYSD and community service in general! We hope to hear from you more about your o