By Olena Vuzka- Malets, FLEX alumna and Greenheart Impact Grant recepient
Warm greetings from Ukraine!
My name is Olena Vuzka-Malets and I was a FLEX student with Greenheart back in 2018-2019. When I returned to Ukraine, I joined the team of Ukrainian Volunteer Service, which contributes to the development of a culture of volunteering and mutual assistance in Ukraine. We believe that volunteering is not only a practice of helping others, but also the foundation for building a mature civil society capable of
responding to the challenges of today.
One of the most important areas of our work is integrating volunteer values into the education system. With this aim, we have been implementing the project “School Lesson of Volunteering” for several years. Its main idea is to show children and teenagers that cooperation, trust, and willingness to help are natural parts of modern life. We are convinced that if these principles are nurtured from an early age, they will stay with a person for life.
We realized – there is no better way to create a lesson on volunteerism than by volunteers themselves. That’s how the idea of “ActiVY” – the project for Greenheart Impact Grant was developed. As a result of a a 3-day civic engagement lab aimed at empowering long-term volunteers, a school lesson on volunteerism was developed. However, it was not only on volunteerism itself – the frst part of the lesson was on media literacy. The volunteers pointed it out as extremely relevant for teenagers, since today’s students are exposed daily to a massive fow of information — much of it full of fakes and manipulation.
On the frst day of school year, September 1st, the lesson was conducted by 40 volunteers in diferent schools and as we have shared the materials online, we expect around a 1000 lessons to be conducted by teachers by the end of the semester
The impact of this initiative is already tangible on different levels:
- For schoolchildren, the project became an opportunity to discover a new perspective on responsibility and critical thinking. During the lessons, children learn to distinguish disinformation, assess the reliability of sources, and understand the importance of trust in society. This is not only an educational process but also the upbringing of future citizens capable of making conscious decisions in the face of information challenges
- For educators, the lesson provided an opportunity to integrate new methodologies that combine academic material with practical life examples. Teachers received ready-to-use tools for conducting interactive lessons that make learning more modern and useful. For many educators, it also became a reminder that school is a space for shaping civic responsibility, not only for transmitting knowledge.
- For activists and volunteers, the project became a platform for change-making. The involvement of students, young teachers, alumni of educational programs, and cultural figures proved that volunteering can be a space for cooperation across generations. Twelve volunteer developers and over forty volunteers contributed to the creation and delivery of the lessons, passing on to students not only knowledge but also the example of active civic engagement.
- For the development of volunteering in Ukraine and worldwide, this experience demonstrates that civil initiatives, state institutions, and international partners can work together to achieve systemic change. Thanks to the support of local education departments, the lessons received official recognition, making it possible to conduct them nationwide.
My experience shows that change begins with small but consistent steps. Each lesson is not only informative but also a new milestone in a child’s worldview. Each interaction between a teacher and a volunteer is proof that the partnership between the state and civil society works. And every step forward in developing a culture of volunteering in Ukraine is a contribution to the global network of solidarity and cooperation
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