Geelong, 19 June 2010

In recent times many Ukrainians have become simply disillusioned with the political situation in Ukraine. It is therefore necessary to educate and train new community leaders in respect of the current events.

Thus, on 19 June 2010, the timing could not have been better to conduct a National Workshop for Trainers & Educators in CYM. CYM’s main aims is to prepare youth as active leaders for the benefit of the community pursuant to its slogan God & Ukraine. Following registration, the participants at the workshop began the day traditionally, with a rendition of the CYM hymn. The day was facilitated by Mark Tkaczuk, the Chair of the National Council of CYM Educators & Trainers in Australia.

The day was augmented by presentations from Irka Jendzowsky, the Chair of CYM’s World Council of Educators & Trainers. Mrs Jendzowsky outlined the role of educators and trainers as well as the World Council’s plans and programme into the future.

Each branch provided a brief report in respect of their own programme. It was interesting to note, that in most cases, sport (hiking and other recreational activities), cultural activities (especially dance ensembles) appeared to be the main attraction for new m embers into CYM.

Group break-out sessions further provided for the opportunity to analyse the difficulties that each educator/trainer and branches identified in their programmes. Primarily, these were the issue of a lack of appropriate training of educators, and significantly, a difficulty with Ukrainian language retention by youth. Whilst this seems to be a generally global (diasporan) problem, it was refreshing to note that many of the young trainers/educators present were prepared to undertake language improvement sessions.

The workshop also reviewed the various programmes currently available for Sumeniata, junior and senior youth members, and prepared one significant and detailed lesson plan for the junior youth group. Each oseredok also undertook to prepare a proposal for review, of an updated/current version of CYM's education syllabus for each of the Yunatstvo levels, in preparation for the upcoming National Conference of Educators and Trainers, scheduled for Sydney on the weekend of 18/19 September 2010.