The four-day program exposes young Ukrainians, ages 14-17, to American culture while improving their English-language skills in fun and interactive ways. The program is based on the idea that learning a foreign language in a classroom is difficult and that the only way to become fluent is to be immersed in an active learning environment.
This year, the Access camp brought some 87 children from working-class backgrounds in the cities of Simferopol, Luhansk and Shchastya to Saki. These three cities were chosen by the organization because of their traditionally pro-Russian tendencies and unwillingness to recognize American cultural efforts. The kids themselves were excited about the program, although the English skills varied considerably. Some could barely pronounce their names while others could quote Hamlet and Macbeth. The camp was also predominantly female, with a girl-boy ratio of about 3:1.
Camp counselors Caitlin Cleary, Margarita Balkova, Ivanna Koziy, and Connor Cleary
The girls carried the camp and were the most active and thoughtful. This trend is not unique to Ukraine; an estimated 58 percent of college undergraduates in the United States are women. Could the old adage “girls rule and boys drool” be true?
On the more diplomatic side, the camp was structured around three themes.
The first, and perhaps most important, was Civic Engagement, the second was Media Freedom, and the third was Healthy Lifestyles.
Each theme was chosen because it emphasized an aspect of citizenship that the people at the embassy felt was crucial to the future of Ukraine but was not being sufficiently addressed. It was enough to get the teenagers to consider these issues and discuss them. The embassy also gave a grant of $900 to a group of campers who wanted to conduct a community service project after returning home.
The campers were placed into three groups (one for each theme). We were instructed to avoid the gaudy presentations of the previous year–the most notable of which was a show-stopping mambo to Christina Aguilera’s “Candy Man”–and instead produce something both educational and thought-provoking.
The students were not as excited about presenting PowerPoints as they had been for the comedy-dance extravaganza, but overall the projects turned out well.
The camp was run in a charmingly chaotic way. The two people who did the most work were the English language fellows (adorably referred to as ELFs). These are American teachers who had come to Ukraine for two years to teach English. In addition to the ELFs, there were eight Ukrainian English teachers from the children’s hometowns. Lastly, there were eight camp counselors.
The average age of the counselors was 20, to ensure that the age gap between counselor and camper was large enough to win some respect towards authority while keeping the atmosphere young and hip. The four American counselors (two Peace Corp volunteers, my brother and me) were chosen with the intention of providing the campers with a dose of authentic American culture, mostly in the form of juvenile camp games and songs.
The four Ukrainian graduates of the FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange) program were probably the more valuable resource, as they exemplified what the kids could become if they worked hard and studied. Each FLEXer had been accepted to the U.S. government-sponsored program, and had spent one year attending a public high school in the United States.
Naturally, the FLEX program does not believe that sending a student to an urban area will provide her (the overwhelming number of students involved in FLEX are female) with a pure cultural experience. Instead, students are shipped off to states that would be otherwise ignored by the global community, such as Kansas, Utah or Arkansas. That said, the FLEX kids had a much better sense of average American life than I did and were, therefore, far more qualified to tell about life in the United States.
Looking back, I can say that the four-day time frame left little room for earth-shattering changes in the lives of campers. Nonetheless, even during the few days that I knew these kids, I saw them grow more comfortable speaking English, discussing issues and participating in silly camp activities — the most ridiculous being the “funky chicken” dance. The kids were enthusiastic to learn, and earnestly sought to improve their English skills by speaking to me or one of my fellow countrymen whenever possible. This enthusiasm is encouraging, so is the active interest of the next generation of Ukrainian adults in learning a language that will give the country better Access – hence the camp’s name – to the rest of the world.
An intense game of Ultimate Frisbee.
In truth, the work that the camp did is largely subjective. The most meaningful interactions took place on a personal level.
The introduction of Ultimate Frisbee by my brother will certainly leave a mark, especially after the embassy donated dozens of mini- Frisbees as parting gifts. The camp’s intellectual impact, on the other hand, will not be determined the students have a chance to apply what they have learned: English, civil engagement, active discussion, etc.
Seven campers from the year before returned to attend the camp for a second time, indicating some degree of previous success. As for right now, the Access camp/activities program is still in its infancy and I am optimistic that the best years are yet to come.
Caitlin Cleary is an American high student studying at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and living in Kyiv this summer.
