Garden for Everybody

Denys Andrushchenko ’12 (Cherkasy, Ukraine)

Event Location: Klaipeda, Lithuania

$486 FLEX Alumni GYSD Grant Funding

$ 1250 cost share from LCC International University

The Garden for Everybody project was initiated by FLEX alumus Denys Andrushchenko ‘12 as part of GYSD 2014 celebration in Klaipeda, Lithuania, where Denys is currently enrolled at the LCC International University.  The alumnus’s goal was to create a sustainable garden at the university and promote local gardening among students. On April 11, the 24 student and local community volunteers constructed the garden boxes near the university dormitories, filtering the dirt from rocks, building big wooden boxes, filling the boxes with soil, and fencing in the area to protect against animals.  

The project also included an information campaign for the university students to teach them about recycling options and facilities and how to compost.  The composting facilities on campus will be used to fertilize the gardens.  Students and faculty on campus became more aware of efficient use of resources and healthy lifestyle. A time capsule with inspirational wishes for future generations was hidden by volunteers under the ground in the garden.

You can read more about the project here

Think of Your Health When You Are Young

Zhamilia Klycheva ’13 (Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan)

Event Location: Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan

$160 in FLEX Alumni GYSD Grant Funding

$ 260 cost share from partners

With the goal of spreading awareness about nutritious and healthy lifestyle, recently returned FLEX alumna, Zamilia Klycheva ‘13 organized the project “Think of Your Health When You Are Young” in Balykchy, Kyrgyzstan. With the help of two other FLEX alumnae, Zhamilia organized the project from April 11-12, involving over 2000 local community members.

The first part of the event took place on April 11 with presentations about healthy nutrition, genetically modified organism, and the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle. Eight and ninth grade students from six public schools attended the presentations and cooking classes to learn how to follow a healthy lifestyle.  

The second part of the event involved volunteers from ten local public schools and three colleges to clean-up three lake territories in the town. After the clean-up participants  gathered on the main square, where each school was given certificate of appreciation and encyclopedia for their library.  Representatives from the local city hall  and local media attended and covered the event. On the same day, Zhamilia organized interesting sport activities for 5-6th grade students from local public schools to promote outdoor activities and exercise among youth.  

The official partner organization for the project, the Kumtor Gold Company, distributed sport equipment for all the public schools.  Project organizers would like to thank the project partners for their efforts and contributions.

Eco Kayak, Coastal Cleanup and Dolphin Watch

Svitlana Buko ’97 (Sevastopol, Ukraine)

Event Location: Sevastopol, Ukraine

FLEX GYSD Grant Funding: 500$

Cost Share: 724$

With coastal areas facing the double threat of climate change and environmental degradation, FLEX Alumna Svitlana Buko ’97 organized a project to promote ecological awareness among the coastal population of Crimea. The project also aimed to reconnect ecology researchers, kayakers, volunteers, and the general population.

The 37 participants, of which 7 were FLEX alumni, watched dolphins from a boat, cleaned up the beach - collecting 11 bags of thrash, studied how to kayak, and hiked up the mountain to watch dolphins. They also took part in two workshops on ecotourism and dolphin protection. The event took place on April 12, in Sevastopol, Crimea. Participants included representatives from local nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, marine research institutions, water sport organizations and business.

FLEX alumna Tetyana Timofeenko from Simferopol says: “During the project, I learned a lot about dolphins and their habits and lifestyles. It was very useful to learn about how to help a dolphin in a critical situation. The lecture was very interesting with great information about Crimean beaches, and the ways in which they are preserved. The most exciting part of the project was being excited about whether we would see dolphins and actually getting to see them, so close and so many!”
Check out the video of the event!
For more information, check out the website that Svitlana has made for this project.

Dolphins noticed during the project

Sevastopol, Ukraine - Balaklava

A look back to Svitlana's  last year GYSD project 

Start Locally - Change Globally

“Start Locally - Change Globally”

Sanira-Begim Mamatova ’13 (Osh, Kyrgyzstan)

Event Location: Osh, Kyrgyzstan

$ 184 in FLEX Alumni GYSD Grant Funding

$ 249 cost share from partners

The GYSD project “Start Locally - Change Globally” was initiated by FLEX alumna Sanira-Begim Mamatova ‘13. The goal of the project was to spread the volunteering spirit among youth of Osh, Kyrgyzstan.

Sanira-Begin with the help of three other FLEX alumni  held a training for 15 students on “Start Locally – Change Globally” among school students from 9, 10, 11 grades. On April 12th, the alumna organized a training covering the topics of volunteering, becoming a global citizen, education, leadership, and  Global Youth Service Day. The following day, volunteers put theory into practice, by taking part in a volunteer event to teach kids how to make quilling postcards at a local orphanage and teaming up with community members to clean up a local park.

We would like to thank project partners: Osh American Corner, American University of Central Asia, Youth of Osh, and “Apteka 5+”.

Practice CACTUS 2014

Anna Solohor ’12 (Cherkasy, Ukraine)

Event Locations: Kharkiv and Bila Tserkva, Ukraine

$ 422 in FLEX Alumni GYSD Grant Funding

$ 3538 cost share from partners

Anna Solohor ‘12, held a Community ACTion Ukrainian Style (CACTUS) Practice project for GYSD 2014.  CACTUS is a time-honored project with the goal of teaching Ukrainian youth the fundamentals of volunteerism, civic activism, and community service on the local level, culminating in the development of participants' own community service projects.

Anna’s project was was in Kharkiv and Bila Tserkva, Ukraine and included 78 participants and 24 volunteer leaders and trainers.  Practice CACTUS projects also took place in two other locations in Ukraine, involving 70 Ukrainian youth.  The project met a milestone with this GYSD project  because it was led fully by Ukrainian volunteers!

Project organizers would like to thank CACTUS organizers and local public schools for their efforts and contribution.

Friends of Help and Travel CRIMEA clean up

Evelina Ibrayimova’11 (Yalta, Ukraine)

After the clean up of Alupka Park

Event Location: Alupka

FLEX GYSD Grant Funding: 103$

Cost Share: 404$

Summary: FLEX alumna Evelina Ibrayimova ’11 organized a project dedicated to environment protection, volunteering, and community service. The first part of the project was a clean up of Alupka city park in Crimea where, volunteers collected 20 bags of trash. After the clean up, volunteers had discussion about the importance of volunteering and everyone shared their experiences and volunteering ideas. Later the team of volunteers visited the Vorontsov Palace, a masterpiece of Crimean architecture. The palace administration organized an interesting lecture about characteristics and history of the Voronstov Palace and showed it to the team from the inside.

Volunteers at Vorontsov Palace, Alupka, Ukraine

The project involved 25 volunteers including five FLEX Alumni. Volunteers not only contributed to the cleaner environment, but also expanded their knowledge of Crimean history and culture. As Evelina says: “By combining hard work, friendly discussion and cultural activity we demonstrated that being responsible for our land can be fun!”

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!