Located in Sevastopol, our dynamic NGO provides a platform for youth in Ukraine to have a voice and initiate positive social change on issues which affects their lives.

10.12.07

"A Day for Students: Developing Students’ Self-management in Sevastopol"




"A Day for Students: Developing Students’ Self-management in Sevastopol"


On November 17th, 2007 the Sevastopol public organization Youth Center "VOLUNTEER" initiated the first training of the project "Students’ Self-management and Expansion of the Rights and Opportunities of Students in Sevastopol.” The project is being carried out with the financial support of the Democracy Fund of the Embassy of the USA in Ukraine.

Training for this first session related to the theme "Leadership and the Organization of Leadership." An audience of 25 student-leaders from the following 5 universities in Sevastopol were invited: 1.) the Sevastopol City Humanitarian University; 2.) the Sevastopol branch of the Inter-regional Academy of Personnel Management; 3.) the Sevastopol National Technical University; 4.) the Sevastopol branch of the Crimean Institute of Economics and Economic Justice; 5.) the Sevastopol Economic-Humanitarian Institute.


At the training venue, the Sevastopol City Center of Social Services for Youth, the purpose of the first session was to rally and unite participants by introducing a common exchange of information and brainstorming ideas for students’ self-management in universities in Sevastopol.


Objectives of the first training: 1.) to acquaint the representative student leaders of various universities of Sevastopol among themselves how to create a common exchange of information 2.) to challenge and expand the existing perceptions of participants about leadership and activism 3.) to generate new leadership skills, behavior and pier relations.

These objectives were successfully realized.


During the first session, innovative, interactive forms of training were used such as role games, "brain storming", situational analysis and interactive games. Also, informational material was distributed relating to the underlying theoretical and legal details of student councils or student government, and also was presented in a lecture format.


Trainers Roman Shamrai, the trainer-adviser and Peace Corps Volunteer Jason Gilpin, and trainer Evgenie Zeman, ensured that the learning atmosphere from the very beginning and during training was benevolent, positive, and held with a spirit for effective productivity. As a result of the training, students expressed a fervent desire to realize, as soon as possible, in practice all the received knowledge and to maintain constant contact among themselves, and to utilize the human and technical resources at their disposal at the YC Volunteer Consultant Center.


During the training there was a film crew of the Sevastopol oblast regional TV. Mass media has expressed much interest in the theme of our project. Therefore, the video footage of the first session has been shown on the program of the Sevastopol news "Our Time", and also on the program "Our City." Therefore, the theme of student government and student leadership has already received ample airtime.



Project head Lyudmila Litvinenko and the project legal trainer Roman Shamrai were also invited for an interview on a local television program.

Very symbolically, the first training took place on the “World Day of Students” - November 17th.