A competition organized in the United States got young people from Ukraine talking about “What the Past Year Has Meant to Me.” The contest included 180 entries from students across the war-torn country and even from some of the eight million Ukrainians who fled their homeland after the war began.
The contest grew out of the Odesa-to-Odessa Pen Pal Program at Odessa Collegiate Academy. The program now has 800 students involved with about 350 in the U.S. and 450 in Ukraine, said Chris Mad, director of the Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program.
A TV station in the city of Chernihiv (population 280,000) intends to run a story on the contest and there has been more coverage.
Students responded to the theme of remembering the past year with essays, illustrations, photos, videos, and poems. These works showed clearly that none of the students has forgotten the invasion date of Feb. 24, 2022, and the anguish that followed. In addition, the students said their patriotism has grown, not weakened, because of the Russian attack.
The contest was arranged by two international organizations, X-Culture (Dr. Vasyl Taras, president) and Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program (Chris Mead, director). A dozen judges helped select the winning entries, a news release said.
Most of the participating students are in schools that are part of the 800-student Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program. This program has been closely allied with X-Culture, an organization that has trained more than 100,000 business students worldwide on solving actual company problems. Other key contributors to building the contest and the Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program were 48 English teachers in schools across Ukraine.
While they didn’t participate in the contest, students in Mikal Crowder’s world geography class at Odessa Collegiate Academy took part in the pen pal program.
“I’m super happy that it’s going to different schools around the country and that they’re getting more people involved in it. I’m going to get with Chris probably when I get back in August and see if there’s the means to continue next year. I think the incoming freshmen will enjoy the opportunity as well. I want to see if we can keep it going here,” Crowder said.
He added that the students were really engaged, especially when they started at the beginning of the year.
“I’m looking forward to doing it again next year,” Crowder said.
Mead of the Ukraine-USA Pen Pal Program said it’s important that the program spreads because he wants Ukrainians to feel like they have support. He added that he can’t support all 40 million, but he’d like their teachers to know that someone here is thinking about them.
It could also help increase the assistance provided to Ukraine.
“One of my motivations for this is I want to punch Putin in the nose” for the things he tells people about the war. Mead said he hopes the information seeps through Russia sooner rather than later and that more Russians will realize Ukrainians are peaceful people and that the war is just a “land grab.”
