International meeting of young female leaders from Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus
International meeting of active participants of the project
“Youth's Philanthropy Unites Countries”.
Starting from November 28 during three days in Kyiv there was the international meeting of young civil society leaders from Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
During the meeting each of the delegations presented own experience of work with local communities through prepared master-classes, project presentations, watching videos and mini-trainings. After each presentation there were discussions, which gave opportunity for participants to engage deeper in a topic or presented methodology. Thus, special attention was given to master-class in uncrowning gender stereotypes and presenting methodology of forum-theater as an innovative approach to interactive work with communities. «New knowledge, new experiences I received will help our organization in developing new projects, which, in their turn, will contribute to solving problems of local communities, raising the level of life quality», - noted Olga Postovanu from Moldova. As all twenty participants are active representatives of civil society, they all came with a lot of diverse information and desire to communicate, that's why exchange of experience contined every evening even aftee the end of official agenda. Their interest concerned possibilities of applying contemporary informational technologies in social work, networking and searching for informational, financial and human resources
necessary to implement ne ideas.
One of the meeting goals was development of strategy for common actions of activists from the three countries. They decided to start work with encoraging youth and involving it in civil society movement by example of Ukrainian First Step to Success Program. «The most useful for me became knowledge to see beginning, content and steps for implementing our common strategy», - told Svitlana Maltseva from Moldova. In January 2013 the teams will submit ready projects to Ukrainian Women's Fund, and in February they will rceive financing
. Thus moe and moe Ukrainian, Belorussian and Moldovan youth will learn about possibility to join civil society movement of their countries, receive experience of writing own projects. After that, with support of Ukrainian Women's Fund they will be able to implement the projects aimed at imprvement of life quality in their communities. «I am sure that after my participation in this project the numbe of active youth will grow in my region and more volunteers will come to our organiztion», - shared her conclusions Olga Storozhenko from Belarus.
«I would like to wish the girls never stop at what has been accomplished and inspired themselves and their friends for the better!» - said Iryna Skip, participant from Ukraine, in her farwell.
All events of the meeting, exchange of social work experiences, joint elaboration of further actions, acquaintance with culture and peculiarities of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus and walk around Kyiv made unforgettable impression on participants, filled them with belief in their strengths, inspired to new achievements and opened many new opportunities.
