Go Camp East 2017

Between 16th and 30th July 2017, I spent two wonderful weeks full of volunteering for the NGO ‘Go Global’ helping out as a youth worker and English teacher for the ‘Go Camp East’ programme in the youth summer camp Dnipro in Kozin, south from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Pavel Havlicek
Aug 8, 2017 · 11 min read

I decided to apply for the Go Camp East several months ago and selected this programme mostly based on suitable dates of two weeks spent in my beloved Ukraine. Due to my study duties (I am currently finishing my MA thesis), this was the only option. However, as I realised later, this was a perfect opportunity to make Ukraine a better place on Earth!

First, it is essential to share a few facts about the Global Office and its Go Camp project. The initiative started in 2016, which was declared the year of English language in Ukraine by the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. The Global Office decided to organise English-language camps for 9,000 Ukrainian young people coming from 127 schools all around Ukraine (90 cities, towns and villages). In addition to that, 308 children from Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts participated in the programme. For 2017, the Go Global team chose even more ambitious goal of having 100,000 students from 700 schools and more than 400 places in Ukraine. The numbers multiplied really significantly, including the number of international volunteers from 120 last year to around 1,000 in 2017! Also, the number of students from eastern Ukraine multiplied twice and around 600 students from war-affected regions came to the Kyiv Oblast to participate in the Go Camp East project. Here is the promo video for 2017. However, the ambitions of Global Office do not end here — until 2020 the aim is to change a whole generation of Ukrainian young people numbering to 1,5 million and create a new generation of European Ukrainian citizens!

The goals of the Go Camp East are truly ambitious and manifold, but at the time of applying very few of them were actually clear to me. Initially, we were told that we would work with young people from eastern Ukraine, teach them English and work with them over the period of two weeks. Filling all the necessary (and there were many!) forms and having an interview Skype call with one of the volunteers from Go Camp team, I finally overcame all bureaucratic barriers on my way to become a Go Global volunteer. Only later, we got to know that our criminal records were checked by Interpol, just in case. However, communication from the Go Camp’s side was always professional thanks to Veronika Ovchynnykova and her quick responses to many of my questions :-) Finally, a few days before the start, we were supposed to fill in the final form concerning our arrival and logistics of our way to summer camp Dnipro.

On Sunday (July 16, 2017) in late afternoon, we finally arrived at the Dnipro campsite located around 30 minutes south of Kyiv. First, its facilities looked not very special and we were accommodated in a building with other volunteers in small rooms of three to four people. Except for the bed (which was quite comfortable), there was not much space and some of us even struggled to place our suitcases in the rooms. However, this was not why we came and nobody really complained about the quality of the accommodation, even if the building only offered so-called ‘Turkish toilet’ for squatting. Especially, when volunteers with some previous experience with Go Camp told us that this was: “better than last year”. I chose to share my room with two of my colleagues from Turkey and Egypt, Mehmet and Mike. In general, the first evening gave us an opportunity to get to know each other and the site as well.

The second half of July brought to Ukraine an interesting group of people with wide background and — as later became clear — a like-minded mentality. International volunteers of different ages (varied between 17 and 30) came from different corners of Europe and the world. The combined distance between our home-places was measured as 17k miles, which was — of course —most significantly shaped by our friends from beyond the Atlantic Ocean. The most populous contingent was sent by Turkey, which delivered 5 volunteers and we were told that Turks are always among the most interested in the Go Camp projects. Except for that, the Go Camp East 2017 hosted two Egyptians, a Serbian, a Swiss, two Germans, me as the only representative from Central and Eastern Europe (which surprised me!), two UK citizens, a Finn, a Canadian, two people from the Netherlands (not Holland — as it is only the biggest province of the country!) and Sofia, a truly global citizen, which I am not able to classify.

On Monday (July 17, 2017), we had a day full of trainings and warm-up activities to get to know each other and better understand our purpose in the programme. We were told that the aim of the Go Camp East is not only to teach English, but even more importantly to overcome the barrier between the young people from the East of Ukraine (Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts) and their peers from central Ukraine (Kyiv oblast), who were also present at the campsite in Kozin. Moreover, they were familiarised with the regime of our work, which was supposed to last from 10 am to 1 pm, when the ‘English camp’ took time every day. For some, this was a bit of disappointment, as the potential of us as volunteers could have been exploited much more. Finally, on the first day, we went through a training on child protection developed by Go Camp together with the British Council.

The following day gave us the first opportunity to meet the students and start working in teams of different schools that came from eastern Ukraine. Me together with five other volunteers were given a school from Lugansk region in Kremenna, a small town not very far from the Contact Line dividing the Ukrainian forces and the so-called pro-Russian separatists supported and equipped by the regular Russian army. Therefore for the students, it was very relaxing to spend their vacations in central Ukraine rather than to listen to the very frequent violations of official ceasefire agreed in Minsk in September 2014 (resp. February 2015), which was never really in place. (What was rather unexpected was the military exercise of the Ukrainian army very close to Kozin, so we could hear the bombing for the first couple of days.) It was very good that for 21 students, there were six volunteers, which enabled us to work with the students individually. Also, what proved quite efficient was the fact that two of us (Sofia and me) could speak Russian, which at times helped to explain previously unknown vocabulary, if that was necessary. Altogether, speaking Russian was a good asset at the camp, which gave a few of us an advantage in explaining things or speaking with the camp’s administration or members of staff.

For the first week, our task was to work in teams on the topic of healthy lifestyle and sports, as this was the area which both the children and their teachers chose as the most interesting for them. Therefore, we devoted majority of our time to specifically those two issues and familiarised the young people from Kremenna’s Gymnasium with how to live a healthy life, what to consume and what to rather avoid. These topics were very easy for us due to the fact that the school was full of sportsmen and very talented dancers (especially among girls). Therefore, most of them understood that — for example — extensive drinking or smoking is not good for their organisms and also that it is important to have a balanced diet. On the other hand, most of the students admitted in informal consultations that they have already tried alcohol, even if the oldest of them were 16. The situation looks similar in the Czech Republic or other post-socialist countries with low prices of alcohol and insufficient prevention for young people.

Over the first five days, we went step by step into the topic of healthy lifestyle and followed the instructions given to the teachers, Larisa and Irina, by the Go Camp team. Unfortunately, for most of the time, there was nobody from the Go Global office to coordinate our activities or tell us what to do. Our teachers were very good and organised (unlike some others), but we were sometimes still missing the connections with the Go Camp crew, who appeared only once in a couple of days to get the feedback. Later, we were told that the teachers were supposed to be responsible for the whole programme and our role was only to be assistants to them, as they got previous training in the field. However, on one of the first days, Larisa told us:

“You know what, the children are often fed up with their teachers, who they keep seeing every day of the year. So why don’t you take over the programme and be in charge of it?”

Therefore, we had to be rather flexible and agree on the upcoming programme every afternoon. This close coordination really helped, however, we were still missing pieces of information and the communication was sometimes lacking behind. Throughout the time, we understood that this was not only problem of our team, but we were actually doing the best of all. Very often, we were invited to the afternoon or evening programmes organised either by the teachers themselves, or by the camp’s administration. Also, we were given materials to conduct the programme in advance. Nevertheless, the situation in other teams was often worse than that, which led the Go Camp team in intervene and have a conversation with the teachers. Later, the Go Camp team admitted that the situation was rather unusual for them and it has never happened in past. The final get-together after the camp (on July 30, 2017) between the Go Global team and us as volunteers really helped to improve the situation for the next group coming after us.

What came as a surprise were two days off the camp that we could take to relax. We decided to go to Kyiv on Friday after our duties and spent a nice weekend there. It gave me an opportunity to meet some of my Ukrainian friends and also have fun with my fellow volunteers. In the end, most of us went to Kyiv for weekend, as the teachers were responsible for the weekend programme in the camp. We made use of our time to explore Kyiv (for many volunteers it was their first time in Kyiv and even Ukraine!). I was very happy that I could visit the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a historic place related to Kyivan Rus and Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe. I had the pleasure to not only explore the complex of monasteries, churches and other building residing in this complex (e.g. the oldest pharmacy in Ukraine), but also to visit the caves in which the first patriarchs and other authorities of the Middle Ages were buried, including the hero Ilya Muromets. The caves were full of sacred artefacts and many deeply-devoted Orthodox Christians, which gave the places a very special religious atmosphere.

After coming back to the camp, our plan was to start with another topic of sports and the Dnipro Olympic Games as another project for the second week. Thanks to Ben Robertson, a British teacher currently based in Stockholm, who coordinated us and the teachers, we managed to prepare a fantastic programme for the last couple of days ending on Saturday (July 29, 2017) with the final ceremony. Our task for the second week was to prepare a new Olympic sport as well as a song and dance for the opening Olympic ceremony. We had a few days to prepare everything and finally show the results of our work on the stage. We decided to develop a special new game, in which both men and women took part at once (such a revolutionary approach to the Olympics!). Our activity was designed as a relay race including several tasks, in which the points and time spent on track counted for the final score. As for the song and dance, we chose the Waka Waka song from Shakira, which served as an anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Thanks to our talented female dances, we put together a very good piece of work, which looked rather spectacular and the song did not so bad at stage either! Unfortunately, our team Space Children did not win, but ended at the third place among five competitors. Not even our motto, helped us to win.

Per aspera ad astra (“through hardships to the stars”).

The reason, why we did not have more time to prepare our activities on Thursday was that there was an Open Day held at the Dnipro campsite, in which many people from outside, including the head of Kyiv Oblast, director of the Go Global office, founder of the Go Camp initiative Mustafa Nayem or people from the British Embassy in Ukraine and British Council took part. After the initial presentations given by each of the guests, the young people were given an opportunity to meet their representatives or take a selfie with them. Except for that, the Dnipro camp hosted many of the Ukrainian TV channels and media outlets recording the life at the campsite and interviewing both the volunteers and the students themselves. Later, a special session with the UK Ambassador to Ukraine Judith Gough was prepared in form of a quiz and Q&A, who was the first foreign representative to recognise and support the Go Camp initiative and provide assistance to it together with the British Council. The session proved that the students knew quite a lot about the UK and many interesting questions were voiced to the ambassador.

As the final word, I just want to mention that even if it was not possible to mention every single amazing moment that I experienced during the two weeks, I would like to express my big gratitude to the Go Global team for inviting me to participate in the Go Camp East 2017, the same as to the group of devoted and like-minded volunteers and finally also to the young people themselves for being so wonderful and talented not only in English, but also in sports, dancing, painting and many many other areas. I truly believe that this is the future of Ukraine able to overcome the current hardship in the country and lead Ukraine to the stars! I wish the Global Office and the Go Camp initiative to meet their ambitious goals and really shape Ukraine in a better place to live and become even close with the EU with its wonderful European Ukrainian citizens! As for me personally, I had a wonderful time in Ukraine, as I love to come back every time I possibly can! Now, my path of exploring Ukraine brought me together with my girlfriend to Odesa, southern pearl city of Ukraine with beautiful beaches and exciting city life, where I have been writing these lines. However, I still cannot forget the past two weeks with students from Kremenna and their teachers Larisa and Irina. Wish you only the best and — as we agreed earlier — hope to see you next year in Kremenna :-)

Pavel Havlicek

Written by

Analyst at Association for International Affairs (AMO)

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade