Day of Service

As part of each CSC assignment there is a "Day of Service" where the team leaves the office and work assignments and participates in a public service activity.  Oksana, our fabulous logistics coordinator, organized an amazing day for us.  She paired us up with an NGO parental organization called Rodyna (http://rodyna.org); which was founded by the mother of a boy with cystic fibrosis.  This organization works to meet the developmental needs of children and young adults with special needs as well as offer information and support to parents on what their rights are here in Ukraine and where they can get help.  As we learned during our day of service, it is only in recent years has this subject of disability (physical and mental) become more mainstreamed and support to these individuals and families is being provided.

We started our day off in Independence Square as there was going to be a Children's Drawing Day sponsored by UNICEF. Our organization was bringing some of the children down to the Square to participate and that is where we met up with them.  Despite the different languages, we all quickly became fast friends as we drew on the sidewalk and danced with the kids.



Who knew the Indian delegation on our team were such avid dancers - SATISH!  Bollywood's got nothing on Satish as he led us in many, many dances and we kind of took over the party with our group as we spent an hour dancing in the main square.








After the morning at the square we went back to the Rodyna center to help them prepare some arts and crafts goods that they will sell as a fundraiser later this summer.  I think only Cheryl on the team is a crafter, but we all pitched in and found our niches - Satish and I were on sewing while the remaining team were on cutting and assembling.  The center makes sashes that you can wear in your hair and I think we all bought one to bring home to have a memory of our day.  I didn't get any pictures but will get some from the team and re-post in a day or two.  I'm borrowing a picture from Cheryl of a finished product, and while this isn't one we made, Satish and I worked on the orange center part of the flowers - his were orange and mine were pinkish.  We were told that in the few hours we worked we had done a months worth of work for the students and their parents.  We wish them all the best!