In May, 2011, it will be the 4^th time, when the international team of the “Eurobus 4: European Youth to Ukrainian communities” project will come to Ukraine. During the project 12 young people from the EU and 3 Ukrainians will travel through our country by bus to hold trainings for the local youth. Every of the settlements, where Eurobus comes, will celebrate the Europe day.

Any town or village can participate in the project!

Key project features:

1) Eurobus will stay in your town or village for two days;

• The first part of the visit will include trainings, seminars, informal discussions with the foreign mentors held for youth. It will be possible to choose and discuss the topics of the trainings in advance, at our web-page;
• The second part of the Eurobus program will include common toloka-format activities, performed by the local youth and the international Eurobus team. The ideas of these activities will be discussed and prepared in every settlement beforehand. Currently, there is a possibility that some initiatives of the local community will be financed by the project. These initiatives should be aimed at developing life conditions in the town or village, and will have to be realized before the project.

2) The foreigners will stay in the families of locals;

Who can apply?

• NGOs;

• Official bodies;

• Local administrations;

• Local activists (youth leaders, teachers, lecturers);

• Indifferent Ukrainians interested in developing the local community.

The applying person automatically takes responsibility of coordinating the project on the local level.

Priorities and criteria.

• Town and villages from the whole Ukraine can apply, but the priority will be given to the Eastern and Southern regions;

• Towns and villages with the population of 1000-15000 people can apply, but the priority will be given to those of 2000-5000 people.

• The priority will be given to the town and villages with schools and/or other educational establishment like college or a technical school.

• The priority will be given to the towns and villages, where the financial and organizational help of local authorities can be provided. Also the possibility to involve the neighboring communities will be an advantage.

What will “Eurobus-4” give to the local community?

• Preparation trainings on the topic of civil activism and youth leadership will be held for the students aged 15-18. The project’s org team provides trainers;

• Co-financing the events of the program in your town or village during the Europe days celebration;

• The arrival of Eurobus and the preparatory actions will give a strong impulse for activating the youth in your town or village. In the observed future this will foster the development and implementation of youth initiatives, as well as the the improvement of dialogue with the local authorities;

• A representative of the local community (the local coordinator, a representative of the local administration aged under 35 or a young activist) will take part in a preparatory training held in Warsaw on May 5-8, 2011.

The local coordinator:

• takes part in a two-day introduction training held for all local coordinators;

• helps in holding the preparatory trainings for the local community;

• develops the program of Eurobus events (in his/her town or village) in cooperation with the project coordinators;

• Organizes lodging for the foreigners during the 2-day stay in his/her town or village;

• Manages other logistic issues (organizing meals, bus parking, etc.);

• Coordinates the activities during the Europe days celebration in the town or village;

• Communicates with the local authorities (village or town administration);

• Local coordinator is the Eurobus guide in his/her town or village!

For this, you need to fill in and send the application form to the email: info@eurobus.org.ua until 23:00 of March 8, 2011

Download the application form

Contacts:

Daryna Barsukova,

Project coordinator

+380501625031

info@eurobus.org.ua

The “Eurobus 4: European youth to Ukrainian communities” project is organized by the young people from a youth NGO “Foundation of Regional Initiatives” (Kharkiv branch).

The project is financed by the International Renaissance Foundation and the EU delegation in Ukraine.

Programs of events in Warsaw and in Ukraine are available in this post Read the rest of this entry »

(Open call for a trainer among the Intercultural Navigators from Ukraine)

You’re Ukrainian, who’ve been the participant of the Intercultural Navigators program of the British Council? You like the methodology of Appreciation Inquiry and would like to use it for conducting you own trainings? You would like to try yourself as an intercultural trainer and develop your own short training course? If YES, so we would be glad to invite you to apply for the trainer of the “Europe inside” intercultural training in Warsaw (6th – 9th May, 2010).

What is Europe Inside?

“Europe inside” is the big part of the international youth project “Eurobus3. Activating community. The EU to Ukraine”, which is aimed to activate rural youth in Ukraine through the intercultural communication and cooperation. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe because of the picturesque hills of the Holodny Yar, which can fascinate and attract you forever? Or maybe because of the daily urban routine, which bothers people in feeling happy. The answers for these questions Eurobus crew and the local youth will try to find in Mel’nyky village in Cherkasy region. Yes, the dialogue with local eco-settlers will become a part of Eurobus events program in Chyhyryn area. Read the rest of this entry »

In Petrykivka it turned out that the main problem o our program is the lack of time, as there are so many sights in the town. Locals are really proud of them, so they’re eager to show all of them to the Eurobus crew. Here ou can find a horse farm, an old church and, of course, the famous workshops of Petrykivka paintings taught here from the very childhood. It is also interesting that Petrykivka goes along with modern technologies – the town develops green tourism. Read the rest of this entry »

And it happened in the Agricultural technical school of Illicha village, which is located not far from Kostyantynivka town in Donets’k region. Read the rest of this entry »

The train Sumy-Luhans’k took us from Trostyanets’ right to the town of Kreminna – the northern point of Donbass. It’s 3 AM: we leave the train, take a taxi and stumble through on an earth road to the home of Kharkiv FRI cell member – Misha Merkulov. Misha has been trying to attract Eurobus to his native town, so in 2010 he finally succeeded in that. Despite it being 3 AM Misha’s mom is not sleeping – she’s waiting for her son and for the guests. Okroshka, tea and 2 hours of extra sleep till the sunrise, and we set for the meeting with local authorities. Local coordinators invited all the government in the area: everybody knows the general project info already but yet we introduce it to the local government and to the mayor of the town. Everybody is ready to help… Read the rest of this entry »

Do good authorities exist? At least yesterday I could definitely answer this question: “NO”. Now it turns out that I was mistaken. Read the rest of this entry »

And Eurobus team, local secondary school pupils and authorities are ready to create it. So, the visit to Zhevtneve turned out to be really efficient! Which is Zhovtneve in its dwellers’ dreams? We were looking for the answer during the training. It turned out that local youth wants to repair the roads, to reconstruct the stadium, to open a cinema, to open a big youth centre and… to make a place for kisses

How can Eurobus help the implementation of young dreams? It was a topic for a meeting with local authorities next morning. We decided to carry out the seminars and trainings with foreigners in the forest, to make a big night fire with dances of different nations in the evening, and during the next day to make competitions for the best Varenyky (Ukrainian national food) maker and the Zhovtneve’s got Talent contest.

Local project coordinator – Alina Poznans’ka, the head of Sumy FRI cell, will actively work to unite the active youth of Zhovtneve and to make in their native village a powerfull cell of FRI. So, Eurobus will become a great stimulus for the young people and a chance for them to become initiative people responsible for their deeds and for positive changes in the society.

P.S. Besides, young leaders from Zhovtneve dream of alcohol sales prohibition for youth.

These ideas of mini-projects for Eurobus events were developed by the initiative youth in Ovruch. On March 16, on the basis of the local technical school #35 a training was held for the local youth. The training’s name was “Be a realist! Do the impossible!” During the training we found out that most active young people from Ovruch town and Ignatpil and Hoshiv villages dream of getting good education, to become well-off or even rich. 16-18-year-old boys dream of getting married and creating a family within the future 10 years. But dreams come true only if the person is strong and if he or she are ready to take responsibility at least for their life – that was the main message of the training.

Read the rest of this entry »