Alex Gargrave’s decision to spend his past three summers teaching English to children in Ukraine took some of his peers back in England by surprise. Ukraine doesn’t exactly make it into their list of “must-see destinations” for the summer.
“There are a lot of stereotypes about Ukraine – that it’s always cold, that it’s radioactive, that the people aren’t friendly – partly because they see Russian as an angry language,” says Gargrave, a 20-year-old student at the University of Portsmouth.
“But it’s the opposite of that.”
Gargrave is one of approximately 1,000 international volunteers that have allocated portions of their summers to promoting English to schoolchildren via GoCamp, an English language-learning initiative that seeks to break down linguistic and cultural barriers in Ukraine.
Now in its fourth year of operation, the project boasts volunteers from around 70 countries, 1,500 participating schools, and 140,000 students in an array of summer camps across the country.
“Our goal is the integration of Ukraine into the global world…and we have this saying that, if you want to change the world, it’s via kids,” Ksana Nechyporenko, director of the NGO Global Office and leader of the GoGlobal project, told the Kyiv Post.
“We’re working on the new generation of Ukrainians, and we want them to be more open, to be without barriers – cultural and language – and to be more motivated in finding what opportunities are open to them.”
A lasting effect
The GoCamp initiative hosts free summer camps for eight to fifteen-year-olds at the children’s local schools during the months of June and August. Schools across Ukraine are selected on the basis of motivational videos, whereby students and teachers alike express their eagerness to participate in the program.
Nataliia Pashchenko, an English teacher at Specialized School No. 173 in Kyiv, first became involved with GoCamp in 2017.
“It was a very interesting and very new experience, in terms of cooperating with volunteers who were eager to help children learn English and to think outside the box about new countries and cultures,” Pashchenko told Kyiv Post.
Kick-started in an attempt to promote foreign language-learning in Ukraine, the camp takes a hands-on approach to immerse children in the English language through interactive games and activities that foster creativity, leadership, and critical thinking. Whether the focus is entrepreneurship, information technology, or ecology, children experience constant language integration.
“We know that, for children, it’s not only about learning English. We can’t say that, after these two-week camps, children have learned English from scratch,” says Nechyporenko. “But we do know that children break their language barriers, their cultural barriers.”
Because a significant proportion of participating schools are located in rural Ukraine, this opportunity marks many children’s first interaction with a non-Ukrainian.
Since 2017, the initiative has also extended to 25 locations in the conflict zones near Donetsk and Luhansk – a feat not thought possible a few years prior. Volunteers with experience dealing with children in conflict areas engage them in creative activities, such as yoga and art.
GoCamp’s impact doesn’t stop at the children, however. The program seeks to revolutionize the way English is being taught in Ukrainian schools by providing training and guidance for participating teachers.
“What’s interesting is that the program uses new, up-to-date techniques (of teaching), because lots of schools here in Ukraine – and even some in Kyiv – still use some Soviet methods of teaching,” says Pashchenko. “GoCamp helps teachers to ‘upgrade,’ so that we can take our experiences from the camp and apply them to our lessons.”
“These training sessions help teachers understand how to educate in a new way, to learn about child-teacher partnerships, skill-based learning, and 21st century learning that is popular in more developed countries, but is not yet widespread in Ukraine,” says Nechyporenko.
“We are working towards one million children having been participants of our camp, because this is about generation. We think we’ll see a real change, and already now we’re seeing that schools have become the heart of the community. It’s been working on more levels than we could have expected when we started.”
Shared experiences
GoCamp is one of the biggest volunteering initiatives in Eastern Europe, with a twenty percent volunteer return-rate. Volunteers aged seventeen to seventy-five from across the globe act as cultural and linguistic ambassadors to promote the English language in an all-expenses paid (minus the flight) experience.
“I don’t think that, in Western Europe, we have a great idea about Ukraine. For me, as an international relations student, I knew more about the politics of what was going on, and that was my primary impression,” says 22-year-old Jemima Wilson-Smith from England.
GoCamp volunteers from across the globe seem to share in Wilson-Smith’s sentiment, admitting that they did not have much knowledge of the country prior to their visit.
They also seem to share a common appreciation for the importance of initiatives like GoCamp, citing the incredible opportunity to come together for a common purpose.
“It’s important because it’s a two-way exchange,” says 22-year-old Andy Burgess from England. “The children are getting a great opportunity to learn a language spoken all across the world, and the volunteers are also getting a terrific opportunity to see a new part of the world, to meet new and interesting people, to help break down stereotypes about Ukraine, and to aid in the development of the country.”
When asked about her favorite memory at GoCamp, Dahlia Bayoumi, an English teacher from Egypt, didn’t hesitate.
“The day I left, the students wrote ‘Ukraine plus Egypt equals friendship’ on the ground,” she said. “It was so nice of them. I was only one person from Egypt, and now 20 students have a good impression of my country.”
“I believe that, if more people volunteered, it would lead to world peace. People would see similarities instead of differences, and since English is the most widely-spoken language nowadays, it’s the bridge.”
GoCamp’s third summer session is due to take place on Aug. 8, 2019 – more information about the application process can be found here. Volunteers must be at least 18 years of age and fluent in English but, apart from these requirements, the project welcomes a diverse and passionate set of volunteers.
