UNYF Youth Leadership
By
Taras Babyuk
On the weekend of
A total of about 32
participants attended the conference. Six of them were facilitators, and the
rest consisted of youth delegates from various cities across
The conference commenced on Friday with a welcome session and an icebreaker ceremony. Following this, the participants watched a documentary film entitled “The Orange Chronicles.” Narrated by a Ukrainian American filmmaker, Damian Kolodiy, who volunteered as an UCCA (Ukrainian Congress Committee of America) International Election Observer, the film examined the Orange Revolution from the vantage point of the people and Kolodiy’s quest for his own modern Ukrainian identity.
A more rigorous program
followed on Saturday. It began with Taras Pidzamecky’s presentation,
ambitiously titled “110 Years of Ukrainians in
Next, came Dr. Roman
Petryshyn’s presentation, “21st Century Challenges for the Ukrainian Canadian
Community: An Environmental Scan.” Among other things, Dr. Petryshyn talked
about the differences between ethnic and civic nationality and made suggestions
on the kinds of activities the UNYF could work on developing. He suggested the UNYF could help new
Ukrainian immigrants integrate into the Canadian society, get involved with
youth organizations in Ukraine, and become more actively involved in the
Canadian internal and political life in order to become more productive citizens
of Canada, while at the same time ensuring that the Ukrainian community in
Canada has a voice. Dr. Petryshyn also emphasized the fact that we should
strive to create programs that are not only short-term, but intergenerational
and long-lasting.
After lunch, one of the
more engaging sessions took place – a workshop headed by Ted Marunchak.
Participants were divided into four groups, and each group was asked to
brainstorm ideas that they think the UNYF should focus on in its activities. At
the end of the session, a speaker from each group made a presentation. Some of
the reoccurring goals mentioned were to provide cultural and entertainment
activities for Ukrainian Canadian youth through activities like dancing,
singing, arts and crafts; to introduce Ukrainian language and history classes;
to divide the UNYF members into age groups in order to be more specific in
targeting the preferences of each group; and finally to establish services that
would aid the Ukrainian Canadian community, such as the immigrant assistance
program mentioned above.
After the workshop,
Oleksandr Mykhayletskyy, UNYF Toronto member, gave a slide presentation of the
events that the UNYF Toronto Branch has organized within the last year, in a
presentation entitled “A Successful Revival: The UNYF Toronto Branch
Experience.”
In the evening, everyone
gathered in a small chapel where Reverend Father Michael Loza performed a
Liturgy of the Word service. He encouraged UNYF members to succeed through
perseverance and keeping sight of their goals.
Saturday’s program came
to an end with the screening of two short films by director Halya Kuchmij: “The Strongest Man in the World” and “The
Fullness of Time: Ukrainian Stories from
On Sunday, the last day
of the conference, participants summarized the proceedings and developed an
action plan for the purpose of implementing ideas that had been discussed. The
most important part of this day was the creation of a UNYF National Committee
that would be responsible for reviving UNYF Branches in cities across
Overall, a lot of
positive feedback was heard from those who partook at the conference, and we
hope that the next conference will be even bigger and just as productive.
Taras
Babyuk is a York University student and the UNYF Toronto President