OUR EVENTS
What is and was up.
On the 6th of December a regular Conference of YMCA Belarus took place in Kinoniya, Minsk. In the of work of the Conference participated 35 people: 26 delegates, 6 participants with right to consultative vote and 3 guests from YMCA Europe. The Conference elected the new Board and the new Chairman of the Board. We congratulate Olga Lukina on such a high assingment!
On 13—15 November in the Youth Center of Volozhin was conducted the 2nd stage of the School of Young Leader which included as one of the parts mini-project contest. The participants had developed their projects in local sections; it had been their "homework". Preference was given to those projects which were aimed at informing the youth about ecologically friendly way of life. Awards were given to:... Now it is time to implement them!
On 5 November in the Youth Centre of Volozhin assembled coordinators of all YMCA Peer Education Centers to analyze factors which influence effectiveness of Peer Education Centers work. In addition, they were to indentify priorities in Peer Education Centers work for 2009—2010. The atmosphere of the meeting was friendly and constructive.
On 23—25 October in the Youth Centre of Volozhin the first stage "Leadership and ecological way of life" of the School of Young Leader was conducted. The YMCA is planning to broaden subject area of program activities at the expense of realizing pilot project on cultivating ecological culture of children and teenagers, who participate in YMCA's programs. Within the scope of the seminar on 24 October ecological action took place and our guest Johanna Berger from the KFUK-KFUM (Sweden) also attended it.
On 15—22 October the 3rd final session of TtT (Training the Trainers) for the YMCA of Belarus, Russia, the Ukraine, Moldova and the YWCA of Belarus was held in Kishinev, Moldova.
The Belarusian YMCA was presented by Helen Litvinchuk, Eugenia Pochepko, and Victoria Surkova (Vitebsk), Nastya Velenets and Inna Palijchuk (Brest). Each participant of TtT received the Certificate of the European YMCA Alliance and materials for carrying out trainings. Look! We have new trainers!
2 October — Olga Sviderskaya took part in the meeting of organizations-representatives of the network Y-PEER. The Network Y-PEER was founded in 2007, and united organizations which conduct educational events based on peer education method. More detailed information about the network you may find on this page: www.ypeer.by
2-4 October Belarusian YMCA Field Group took place in Brest. The participants were invited to a performance "Turn over a New Leaf" where they met members and volunteers of Brest local section.
For the first time the action Bethlehem Light (Light of Peace) was held in 1986 by the Austrian TV company ORF as part of a large-scale charity program Light into Darkness in support of miserable handicapped children. Thousands of people carried along the streets the symbol of peace, friendship and unity — a part of light, which an Austrian boy lit from an icon-lamp in Christmas Grotto in Bethlehem.
In 1989 Austrian scouts first took part in the action, and now the action is a specific relay race of European scouts, when Bethlehem Light is passed on from hands to hands, from Catholic Church to Orthodox Church all over Europe in special icon-lamps. In 2000 Christmas Light came to Belarus for the first time. Traditionally passing on of the Light took place on Polish-Belarusian border from Polish to Belarusian scouts. In Grodno the Light is passed on in the catholic cathedral and then it travels to various towns and churches of Belarus. It is carried by scouts from various regions of Belarus: Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Molodechno, Minsk, Lida, Volozhin, Volkovysk and others. As soon as it arrives in Vitebsk, and after the traditional Te Deum in the Sviato-Uspensky Church, it is passed on to brother scouts from Russia.
This year YMCA Belarus was represented in the action by Alexey Dozortsev and Alexander Artuschenko. They went with the Light relay-race to Belarusian towns 1320 km and passed the Light on in Vitebsk to master-scout Viacheslav Chernykh from "Russian Scout Union".
On July 24—30 on the picturesque bank of the biggest in Belarus lake Naroch we held our jubilee, fifth!!!, Jamboree. 90 people from five different countries (Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, Switzerland and Estonia) gathered there to meet with the old friends and make new acquaintances, to have a joyful time and bask in the sun. For a whole week the young people built ships, looked for treasures, traveled in various countries, tore off banners and climbed with ropes according to PIRATE theme of the camp. The scout life continued even at night, and it could be heard in the nearby forests. And after they had had enough of running and singing, the pirates arranged a procession with torches and went back home.
As a result of the agreement between YMCA Sweden and ЕАУ the first of the three sessions of the Training for trainers from YMCAs of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Moldova was held. Each national movement was represented by 8 people, 2 people came from Moldova, and the working language was Russian. The trainers' team was quite impressive: Michal Szymanczak, Vardan Hambardzumyan, Mikhail Guskov (all of them from ЕАY) and Alexey Kostyakov from YMCA Russia. The organizers promise that all those who attend all the three sessions will receive a Certificate of the European Alliance of YMCAs and the materials for conducting trainings. Remember: training is a wonderful place for sharing programmes, experience and creative discoveries! And it's up to you to make it a success! The continuation will take place in Kiev, Ukraine, this November.
On 1—2nd April in the house of Kinonia not far from Minsk there was held a seminar "Efficient management" for the members of the boards and the leaders of local organizations of YMCA Belarus. Altogether 23 people from 7 towns took part in the seminar. The leader Natalia Riabova familiarized the participants of the seminar with the main principles of efficient management, modern concepts of organizational behaviour, development and other clever theories practiced all over the world. All the issues were shown on concrete examples from the life of our organization and NGOs in general.
The aim of the seminar was to raise the level of awareness of the main leaders of the organization and to work out realistic proposals on improvement of management of the organisation. The participants of the seminar worked out and discussed the proposals on distribution of powers between the Board and the National office (the staff). There was also created an initiative group on public relations and worked out a draft plan of its work for 2006—2007. Each of the participants went away with bigger knowledge, and soon we will see how this knowledge with affect the development of the organisation.
Another regular Ten Sing Conference was held in Lida on 29th January 2006. The following items were on the agenda: the analysis of the situation in Ten Sing movement in Belarus, Ten Sing strategy for the next 5 years and, of course, the elections of Ten Sing committee. Creative working atmosphere at the Conference made it possible to solve all the problems quickly and efficiently. Michael Yankouski was again elected Chairman of the Committee.
YMCA Belarus General Assembly took place on 17th December 2005 in Molodechno. The event was organized very well that's why all questions were solved quickly and fruitfully. The result of the General Assembly was the new National Board with the new Chairman.
YMCA Belarus held the Second National Program Festival "Rainbow over Belarus" on 13—16th May 2005. The motto of the Festival became the phrase "...May peace and love multiply", and the event itself was held in the year of 5-year anniversary of the activity of YMCA Belarus national movement and 10-year anniversary of registration of the first local YMCA in the country.
The Program Festival gathered more than 150 people from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Sweden and it became a big stage for old friends' meetings and making new friendships, for summing up the results of the work and planning future activities, for discussion of acute problems and introduction of innovative ideas.
Report in the form of a letter: "One cold autumn evening when I was sitting in the office I got a mail from Lithuanian friends in which they invited TenSing team to take part in a little TenSing festival, which will take place in Vilnius. After long sufferings with getting visas and all the necessary papers we finally arrived at the festival. And it was not in vain. The environment there was just marvelous. Everybody was so happy to see foreign participants (I mean us), that we even felt shy. But after our team got on the stage for the first time we didn't feel self-conscious any more. The specific feature of the festival as compared with other events of the kind was that there was a lot of activity on the stage and fewer workshops. Just to make more fun for everybody. Thus, they remembered each participant from the best side. We had a FANTASTIC time! We hope they will invite us again in 2005 to take part in this stunning project of TS Lithuania". Sergey Smirnov, Leader of Belarusian delegation
In the course of the meetings the participants visited Lida Peer Education Centre: met with volunteers and took part in the classes on the programme "Youth FOR the healthy way of life!" We also met with participants of "TenSing" programme who work in the field of promotion of healthy way of life. Participants also visited Volozhin Peer Education Centre where they spoke to volunteers and got familiarized with the work of Volozhin Youth Centre of YMCA Belarus.
The following people took parting the meeting from Belarusian side: Inga Malashkevich, Vitali Nikanovich, Michael Yankouski and Helen Malyshkina.
Five Belarusian participants and two trainers — Olga Sviderskaya and Vitali Nikanovich got familiarized with the system of leaders' training in YWCA/YMCA Angsholmen. It made it possible for our trainers to evaluate the results of education of leaders in YMCA Belarus in 2004. As a result of the talks there were planned return visits of Swedes on local to local program and defined criteria for international internship. Finally, there were defined directions of improvement of "School of young leader" program.
And impressions from the trip are very poetic:
"Stockholm is quite unique as usual... We'd like to come here again and again. And whatever you see, traditions and modern life are merged here. It concerns landscapes, panorama of the town or people and their activities.
The Angshollmen camp is not an exception. New games on teambuilding and methods of familiarization with YMCA activities, traditional programs for the camp (string course, canoe, swimming, games) — everything seemed harmonic, interesting and lead to reflections: how can we adapt experience of Swedish partners to our conditions? How to "tune in" when the cultures are different?
How to enable Belarusian participants not only to "take" but also to "give" - introduce themselves in the context of international youth work? — Olga
Trip to Switzerland through the eyes of a participant: My name is Sergey Smirnov, I was a member of the group which visited YMCA Switzerland in August 2004. During the trip we got familiarized with the work of local organizations of Zurich and Regensdorf. But the main aim of our trip was to take part in SoLo—2004 camp. And it was after the camp that we had our brightest impressions. Each day was so interesting that we would like to say a big thank you to the camp participants (the Swiss) and all the others who were there. When we got back to our Motherland (I mean Belarus) we were still greatly impressed for a long time. Hope to see our Swiss friends soon!!!
The input of Belarusian participants was first of all in presentation of their country, its culture and language. Visit card, oral narration and wall paper let foreign scouts learn more about Belarus and specific features of YMCA Belarus. Belarusian scout shoutings which are traditional for us but quite unusual abroad also added a lot to general picture of the camp. The beginning of scout year — and we again are strong, inspired and ready for the work in YMCA Belarus. YMCA Vitebsk took responsibility to arrange the 4th Belarusian Jamboree in 2006, and YMCA Belarus is planning to arrange the 3rd European Jamboree in 2008. We got stronger and I believe we are now experienced enough to carry out international programs and arrange the next Jamboree on the highest level.
We also participated in it! The festival gathered about 220 people from 15 countries under the slogan - "Get united because we are worth it!" By joint efforts of organizers and guests there was arranged a 5-day seminar on HIV/AIDS prevention, the second day of which was devoted to presentation of Belarus: there was shown an educational module on HIV/AIDS prevention (the way our multipliers conduct it); there was also introduced technology of realization of the project "Youth against HIV/AIDS" in Belarus and the vision of the ways of development of the program on HIV/AIDS prevention. The aim of such an impressive festival in the Ukraine is to work out a common vision, the concept of how the theme of AIDS prevention should be covered in the work of YMCA.
