Volunteer project and youth exchange for schoolchildren of the city of Kharkiv
This year is coming to an end, and we cannot but note one of the successful projects that we implemented this year. It all started with the idea of youth leader Katerina Zolotarova from Kharkiv to hold a series of online psychological support sessions for schoolchildren from Kharkiv, who are under constant stress from missile and drone attacks from Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and in these difficult conditions they’re trying to live and learn.
So with a zero budget at the beginning and huge support from international partners, we have held 2 series of online sessions with psychologists Sevi and Angeliki from Greece and Javier from Spain, who not only combined the topics of taking care of their mental health, methods on coping with stress, but also communicated in English with the participants, which gave teenagers the opportunity to get acquainted with intercultural interaction and feel the support of international volunteers.
And as a continuation of this project, there was a trip to the youth exchange «Living in Peace Together» under the Erasmus+ program, which took place in Spain (Sieteiglesias, Madrid). This allowed Ukrainian schoolchildren to meet and communicate with young people from France, Spain and Italy and spend 2 unforgettable weeks together. The topics of civil society development and peaceful international relations were discussed at the exchange. A total of 20 participants took part in this exchange.
We thank our partner organizations De Amicitia and Elix/ Ελιξ- Προγράμματα Εθελοντικής Εργασίας for their support in the implementation of this project, without them it would not have been possible. In particular, a huge gratitude to project coordinator Angeliki Sifaki and volunteer psychologists Sevi Tsoni and Javier Miranda for their wonderful support sessions.
We would like to thank De Amicitia`s coordinators Nacho González and Leonardo Valente separately for organizing and inviting our group to this youth exchange.
And of course to Katerina Zolotarova for the idea and the huge work to bring it to life.
This project is an example of how pure motivation and volunteer support can create great things!
