This year the World Bank held a fair of young people’s innovative ideas under the slogan “Choose Your Future Today.” Young Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Moldovans competed in the competition. Forty projects were shortlisted, and their authors arrived in Kyiv to vie for a World Bank grant that would guarantee that their plans are implemented. “The selection criteria included innovation, resultativeness (the extent to which one can assess the result of these projects), sustainability (the way the project will be carried out), and the extent to which the project is realistic,” said Martin Reiser, economic advisor of the World Bank and jury chairman.
“It was very difficult to judge the submissions, select, and eliminate candidates. It was a shame because almost all the projects deserved to be funded,” Viacheslav Kulchytsky, a jury member and the deputy head of the Swiss Cooperation Office for Belarus run by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), told The Day.
Many of the winning projects are aimed at employing and generally improving the lives of people with special needs. For example, the Donetsk-based youth civic organization Agency for Social Partnership drafted a project for a special English-language course for young vision-impaired people. “I think it is wonderful to teach visually-challenged people foreign languages and computer skills,” Reiser noted.
A project called “Accessible Employment for Young People with Special Needs,” submitted by Young Cherkasy, a coalition of youth civic organizations in Cherkasy oblast, won a World Bank grant and a special British Council prize.
“I had this idea a long time ago because I represent a target group with which we have been working for almost three years,” project author Anna Kharchenko told The Day. “I know the problem from the inside: it is very difficult for employers to adequately respond to and employ an individual with obvious physical handicaps, and it is very important for disabled people to have a high level of motivation to begin looking for a job. There are barriers everywhere: from entryway stairs to moving freely about the city.”
Kharchenko thinks this must be done “because parents are not immortal and people should be able to take care of themselves.
They must have the will to develop, become inspired, know how to earn a living, and have fun.” She is inspired by her win: “Thanks to this project, we will try to establish an information center linking entrepreneurs and job centers with vulnerable population groups.”
The British Council’s communications and PR manager Volodymyr Sheiko told The Day why the council chose Kharchenko’s project for its special prize — a collection of English books: “First of all, we thought that the authors had taken on a very serious responsibility, and I am sure they will be able to translate them into reality. This problem is usually avoided as an ‘inconvenient’ one. As a result, people with special needs mostly rely on themselves and their families. Therefore, we are delighted to support these people in some way, help them secure them a decent job, the possibility of employment. I take my hat off to them for their daring and for coming here to present their projects.”
The Minsk-based youth civic association ABCs of Entrepreneurship is also preoccupied with the problem of employment for young people with special needs. The jury also awarded a grant to their project “Inspiration.” Another winner, the Moldovan resource center Young and Free, is working to give a new chance to juveniles and young convicts.
The winning projects not only deal with employment among vulnerable groups. They also provide assistance to other groups of young people, especially those who live in depressed regions and small towns where employment is scarce, helping them make the right choices in life. Young people usually have no work experience, so they find it difficult to find a job, which boosts the level of youth unemployment. This perturbs the Faklia children’s and youth civic organization. Their project “New Prospects for Youth,” a collaborative effort with the Sumy oblast charitable foundation Blahovist, raises the question of the wrong choice of profession. Statistics show that 47 percent of young people are jobless and 42 percent of employed youth have jobs they were not trained for.
“Through this competition we want to show that even small amounts of money can do a lot,” Reiser said, pointing out that the World Bank issued 216,000 dollars’ worth of grants for the 13 winning projects. “There are a lot of very good ideas. It is great, especially for young people, to have an opportunity to get together, exchange experience, and learn something new,” Kulchytsky said.
“The exhibit of shortlisted projects convincingly demonstrates the role of young people and their high potential as active participants in the development process. It also offers concrete examples of this kind of participation and provides the participants with an opportunity to share ideas and knowledge,” said Paul Bermingham, World Bank Director for Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.
PLAYING IN UNISON
Before the World Bank executives officially announced the winners, The Day’s editor Larysa Ivshyna walked around the stands to acquaint herself with the project authors and their ideas. Five minutes later she presented the newspaper’s choice of best authors with books from The Day’s Library Series. Her professional intuition led her to make the right choice: two of the three projects that she selected were awarded World Bank grants.
“A huge quiz called “Where Have I Been?” will be held simultaneously in two cities, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. It will comprise interesting tasks and some elements of the popular youth sports game known as quest, as well as certain intellectual tasks aimed at shattering the stereotyped view that smoking, alcohol, and drug abuse are an integral part of modern man’s image,” said Katia Cherevko, one of the authors of a quest game project created by the Kharkiv regional branch of the all- Ukrainian youth civic organization Democratic Alliance. This project carried off prizes from both the World Bank and The Day. “These are very talented boys and girls, The Day’s editor noted as she presented Cherevko with a collection of books.
Another prize-winning project was called “Success: A Change of Priorities,” designed by the Vinnytsia-based regional civic organization Laboratory of Imperative Creativity. “The main goal of our project is to visualize the consequences of bad habits among young people, i.e., their effects on their future, and ways of kicking bad habits, like drinking beer or smoking cigarettes. It took the five of us about two weeks to prepare the project,” Anton Khodakov, told this reporter.
Another recipient of books from The Day’s Library Series was the Donbas Regional Development Agency, which developed a project called “Student Clubs as a Method of Youth Self-Realization.” “This is a surprising and very energetic group of projects,” The Day’s editor said. “I am glad that we are supporting the World Bank in its endeavors because we can see how effective it is. The Day’s annual photo competition, which is supported by the World Bank, adheres to the same principle — to choose the best and the most talented. It is very important for me to know that, thanks to this contest, the residents of Taiwan, for example, will get to see photographs taken by a talented, young, but unknown photographer from Vinnytsia in their office calendars.”
In the person of The Day’s editor young people have found a new friend and partner, who will help coordinate the projects and maintain links among these young go- getters from various parts of Ukraine. “Always cooperate with each other. The World Bank gave you a powerful impetus for ideas and creative works, but even when you come back home, you should support and maintain contact with each other,” Ivshyna said to the participants and advised them to contribute to the newspaper, promote events and take part in them, and share their ideas. “Send us your ideas.”
VICTORY IS NOT THE MAIN THING
The authors of projects that did not win any prizes are still intent on implementing their ideas. The Donbas Regional Development Agency did not receive a grant, but this didn’t upset its representatives. “From the very beginning we said that whether or not the World Bank approves our project, we will still carry it out, either with the agency’s resources or ones that our students find. The boys and girls will learn how to raise funds for their own ideas, which is a positive thing,” said Natalia Tvereza, the head of the agency’s training center. She noted that victory is not the main thing, although winning helps young people implement their ideas. “This contest is extremely important, especially for young people who are participating in this event for the first time and have gotten to see other people’s multifaceted ideas,” she said.
Anna Kharchenko, the author of the project “Accessible Employment for Young People with Special Needs,” said, “If we had not won, it would have been sad, of course, but in any case we would have tried to raise funds because the idea is good, and we know it is necessary and innovative, so we took a systemic approach.” Anton Khodakov, a co-author of the project “Success: A Change of Priorities,” agrees with her. “If we hadn’t won, I would have been upset, but we would still have implemented the project. Our organization cooperates with the Vinnytsia Oblast Department for Family, Youth, and Sport. We would have submitted the project to them, and I think they would have backed us. They love us. They cooperate with us because they like our ideas, projects, and our possibilities.”
“This project will happen,” said Halyna Krot, manager of the project “A Pony Called Hope,” submitted by the Belarusian Civic Horse Riding and Hippotherapy Association (BHOVII). We have support.”
Both the winners and the losers were pleased with the contest, emphasizing the importance of such events for the younger generation, which is brimming with good ideas.
Unfortunately, except for some non-governmental organizations, very few foundations are ready to put the projects designed by young and talented people into practice. Martin Reiser was right in saying that Ukraine still has not formed an effective network of social organizations and their funding. Many excellent ideas remain on paper.
It is difficult to overestimate the role of the World Bank. Through its active position it shows that the state can only benefit from investing in youth. Meanwhile, Ukraine lacks foundations that would raise the prestige of funding young people’s ideas.
