In July 2010 Community Connections program alumni participated in a contest to organize youth volunteer campaigns. We received 36 applications. 21 projects from 17 cities of Ukraine were supported. Please, contact us if you would like to join any of the projects. 

The Ukrainian NGO, “Stara Volyn,” based in Khmelnytskyy Oblast, was selected as the implementing partner for the approved IC alumni activity: Engaging Youth into Volunteer Activities. The proposal review panel included PH staff and Tamara Palyvoda from USAID. Part of the budget for this event is being spent to condense the seminar/training activities into a two-hour electronic course that will be distributed to approximately 400 alumni on CDs. Also approved was a small grants program which will offset costs for volunteer activities that engage youth initiated by alumni and/or their organizations. These are anticipated to take place across Ukraine and must be completed by 15 September 2010.  

On 15 September 2008 a two-hour meeting took place in Simferopol at which CCP alumni from Crimea spoke with the USAID Assistant Director for Europe and Eurasia, Dr. Douglas Menarchik and his assistant, Wade Larsen. Also present at the working lunch were Janina Jaruzelski, USAID Kyiv Mission Director, Alina Yurova from the Health Office and Olha Myrtsalo.   The five alumni from the HIV-AIDS Combating Stigma and Discrimination group (CCP 2006) were Dr. Talyat Mamutov of the Kuybishev District Hospital; Dr. Eldar Ablayev, from the Crimean National Medical University; Dr. Munire Ablayeva, assistant to the head of the Republican Medical Center for Deported Nationalities; Leonid Voloshenko, Director of the NGO Agency of Municipal Development, "City of Masters" and Denis Troshyn, President of the charitable organization, "Gavan+."