Keep the Volunteer Spirit Alive
KHERSON-RIVERLAND SISTER COLLEGES
The durable, long term relationship between Riverland College in Austin, Minnesota, and the Peace Corps continues! In 1999-2000, Austin's Harry Stevens, a Peace Corps Volunteer (1999-2001) taught business at Kherson University in Ukraine. Then, in 2001, U.S. Embassy "Democracy" and PC grants funded Media Dialogs regarding Clean Energy for Crimea including about about 90 Ukrainian participants and 10 U.S. experts (coming under a third grant then) in Wind and Solar at a conference in Yalta. The 2003 partnership formalizing the Sister Colleges of Riverland and Kherson University's collaboration continued these mutually advantageous efforts. In 2002-2003, Educators from Riverland and Kherson expanded their international awareness via exchange visits. Also in 2003 the National PC Association provided funds to support and promote Distance Learning via Riverland and Kherson, involving three Ukrainian students taking an on-line course in English Composition. Last year, Friends of Ukraine - Peace Corps (FoU-PC) and Minnesota Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (MNRPCV) provided funds in December, 2008, to expand 2005 grants for distance learning to include: a Summer 2009 Advanced English Composition Course taught at Riverland by Richard Nicolai; a September–December 2009 course in Ukrainian Culture as well as a course in Conversational Russian during February–May 2010 – both of these taught by Ukrainian instructor Petro Melnichuk -- via ten 1-hour live 2-way video skype morning classes (9-10 AM on the East Coast) in each of up to five cities in the U. S. -- so far on Mon in GA, Wed in PA and Fri in MN, Ukrainian Culture to begin 21-25 Sep.
Current Riverland International student Ivan Okhin, from Kherson, Ukraine, serves as this Project's Manager and Website Developer with Petro Melnichuk as Associate Manager. Check out these sites: http://soukraine.pbwiki.com/ and http://co.net/sisters/ -- also, http://co.net/colleges/ -- where Riverland incoming new student materials are in Russian, as spoken in Kherson and Crimea, includimg Yalta.
Many expect that now that Peace Corps appears to be the recipient of expanded funding, a new PC component like TOEFL or Community Organizational Development or Agriculture or Health will evolve focusing on many ecological-related matters. Ukrainian small wind turbine training was a Ecolinks funded project back in 2002. Riverland will soon be offering a Wind Turbine Technician course. Further fostering these efforts is Austin's "aces" -- Austin Coalition for Environmental Sustainability, which also contributed funds.
We are grateful to all involved supporters, especially FoU-PC and MNRPCV, as we encourage and facilitate the development of: students, faculty and others via travel; email; skype exchanges and other forms of distance learning; cross enrollment in on-line as well as off-line courses; transfers of credits and similar efforts.
A celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps will occur with a "Cruise With the Cossacks" in 2011 on the Dneiper River and Black Sea. Information at Friends of Ukraine - http://ukraina.ning.com/forum/topics/Yalta-in-2011/ - when you join this Forum, fill out your profile; click on "Enrolling but not Dues paying" and then at the very bottom, you must click on FOLLOW. For a potential itinerary and map of the cruise go to
http://www.vikingrivercruises.com/us/cruises/FOTC/09ODSKBP11/VLO/it...
Tour leaders Nancy Christopherson and Deb Schell in the U.S. and Tanya Bukharina and Nataliya Smirnova in Ukraine are available to give talks to international Rotary and other service clubs about Yalta in 2011, about 2009-10 and 2010-11 classes in Ukrainian Culture and Conversational Russian, and about a 3-credit Riverland course associated with the two-week cruise. Phone 507-433-0600 for further info.
Article written by Dan Kane
Current Riverland International student Ivan Okhin, from Kherson, Ukraine, serves as this Project's Manager and Website Developer with Petro Melnichuk as Associate Manager. Check out these sites: http://soukraine.pbwiki.com/ and http://co.net/sisters/ -- also, http://co.net/colleges/ -- where Riverland incoming new student materials are in Russian, as spoken in Kherson and Crimea, includimg Yalta.
Many expect that now that Peace Corps appears to be the recipient of expanded funding, a new PC component like TOEFL or Community Organizational Development or Agriculture or Health will evolve focusing on many ecological-related matters. Ukrainian small wind turbine training was a Ecolinks funded project back in 2002. Riverland will soon be offering a Wind Turbine Technician course. Further fostering these efforts is Austin's "aces" -- Austin Coalition for Environmental Sustainability, which also contributed funds.
We are grateful to all involved supporters, especially FoU-PC and MNRPCV, as we encourage and facilitate the development of: students, faculty and others via travel; email; skype exchanges and other forms of distance learning; cross enrollment in on-line as well as off-line courses; transfers of credits and similar efforts.
A celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps will occur with a "Cruise With the Cossacks" in 2011 on the Dneiper River and Black Sea. Information at Friends of Ukraine - http://ukraina.ning.com/forum/topics/Yalta-in-2011/ - when you join this Forum, fill out your profile; click on "Enrolling but not Dues paying" and then at the very bottom, you must click on FOLLOW. For a potential itinerary and map of the cruise go to
http://www.vikingrivercruises.com/us/cruises/FOTC/09ODSKBP11/VLO/it...
Tour leaders Nancy Christopherson and Deb Schell in the U.S. and Tanya Bukharina and Nataliya Smirnova in Ukraine are available to give talks to international Rotary and other service clubs about Yalta in 2011, about 2009-10 and 2010-11 classes in Ukrainian Culture and Conversational Russian, and about a 3-credit Riverland course associated with the two-week cruise. Phone 507-433-0600 for further info.
Article written by Dan Kane
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