On August 11th – 18th NGO “Poruch” expert Oksana Melnyk had a great opportunity to participate in the International Children’s Camp “Small World”, located in picturesque Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, the town of Atskuri, Georgia. 

Such camps have already been held in Georgia for several years successively and unite Ukrainian and Georgian children with the support of the Analytical Centre of Interethnic Collaboration and Consultations in the partnership with NGO “The World of Tolerance”.

“Small World” is a programme for the teenagers displaced from their homelands in a result of military conflicts. This year the camp has invited the children forced to move from the east of Ukraine (Luhansk and Donetsk regions), the Crimea, Abkhazia, and South Osetia (Georgia).

The format of the camp helps the participants not only realize their creative potential, but also develop successful communicative skills, it encourages intercultural dialogue and the search for peaceful ways to deal with conflicts, to set and reach a goal, teaches unique everyday skills.

Every day in the camp was full of various master classes and activities. For example, children went on a daylong eco-hiking tour through picturesque Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, during which the participants learned basic camping and survival skills, sports orientation, they were also instructed how to pack tourist backpacks, and completed a number of team tasks (e. g. looked for 10 Pokémons). One of the most popular was the master class on video filming, after which the teams were able to make videofilms about the camp. In addition, there were a lot of adaptive trainings, discussions, speaking club, intellectual and sports games (football, volleyball, martial arts), drama and dancing clubs.

“Poruch” expert Oksana Melnyk participated in the camp with the project “Volunteer School”, tried herself as a “live book” within the thematic of volunteering, organised a master class on making Ukrainian national doll “motanka”, held a workshop «Target Formation and Setting».

The organising team consisted of Ukrainian and Georgian instructors, who had been previously trained during special courses on intercultural education and had experience of working with IDPs.