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Volunteering Abroad: Help Us Help the Children Winter Camp
from March 2019
by SUSK_Student
VOLUNTEERING ABROAD: HELP US HELP THE CHILDREN WINTER CAMP
MAXYM DUBCZAK
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From January 1 to January 10, the Ukrainian-Canadian organization Help Us Help the Children (HUHTC) had its annual winter camp. This organization started 25 years ago as an effort to help children in Ukrainian orphanages and has grown to an organization that hosts camps attended by almost 500 children every year. In addition, they have done incredible work offering scholarships to graduates of the orphanages in order to further their education.
This year, I attended the winter camp as a volunteer along with a dozen other volunteers from Canada and the United States. I will briefly speak to some of my most impactful experiences at the camp including the gratitude the kids showed and their stories.
The camp’s home base was in a Soviet Era ski jump facility in the village of Bukovel. Despite the dated condition of the facility, the orphaned kids were always grateful and appreciative that they had the opportunity to attend the camp. This gratitude would repeat itself throughout the camp. Upon their arrival, we also handed out clothes to the kids. These clothes were all generously donated by people in Canada throughout the year. Kids happily received people’s old coats, t-shirts, hats, gloves, pants, boots and other warm clothing. Some of them would go on to exclusively wear what they received on the first day the whole time.

Starting on the second day, regular activities began with groups alternating between skiing and taking part in workshops designed to help young adults succeed in the real world. At camp, I was a ski instructor and was assigned two groups that would ski with me on every other day. My first group consisted of Виталі (1), Виталі (2) and Свєта while my second group consisted of Владік, Муйсьі (Moses) and Сиргій.
During my three days instructing each set of kids I was able see both their gratitude and cheerful outlook along with learning of their sad backstories. Some of the kids had no parents, others were placed in the orphanages because their parents had issues with substance abuse while one of my kids was a recovering methamphetamine addict at the age of 16.
Despite these adverse conditions, all of them were constantly thanking me for helping them learn to ski and never complaining about the winter weather. When speaking to each of the kids I was able to see that in each case, they were simply dealing with unfortunate circumstances and had they been brought up in a typical Canadian household they would have had a much higher chance of becoming successful. The unfairness of this reality left me a lasting impression.

On the last day of camp, the kids looked visibly upset that they had to leave the camp. Many did not want to go back to their orphanage as they knew that their lives had little hope there. The older kids gave their Instagram usernames to the volunteers so that they could keep in touch with the role models that they had met.
It was clear that despite the support we had given the kids in the 10 days, they still needed support so that they had a better chance of escaping the world that they came from. I was reminded by other volunteers that the kids need role models and greater support to help them succeed. For this reason, I plan on going back to the camp and would recommend that other people consider volunteering as well, or looking at the work being done as it is helping slowly change the lives of the most vulnerable children in Ukraine.

For more information about Help Us Help the Children, visit their website at http://huhtc.org/ where there is more information about the organization itself along with a way to donate.

Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union
Vol. 61, Is. 02