Ukrainian Student Benefits from Rotary Fellowship

Vadim Ostrovsky, of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, has decided to make a career of working towards peace on earth.  He is working to achieve his aim with help of a Rotary International World Peace Fellowship.

Ostrovsky, 26, says that he felt the call of duty to change the world for the better. “It is not enough to talk  or even believe in peace. One must actively pursue it,” says Ostrovsky, who started his peace fellowship at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia in February 2006.

The fellowship allows recipients to earn an MA degree in peacemaking and conflict resolution at one of seven Rotary Centers for International Studies around the world. Centres are located at leading universities in France, the UK, the U.S., Japan, Argentina and Australia.

Launched in 2002, this two-year program is aimed at helping the next generation of government officials, diplomats and humanitarian leaders develop the skills needed to reduce the threat of war and violence worldwide.

“My goal in life is to attempt to change as many people’s lives as I possibly can. And, since the lives of many depend on the policies, whether domestic or international, I see myself gravitating towards the world of policy-making,” says Ostrovsky, who came to the United States in 1997 to study.

After earning a BA degree in Global Marketing Management and Management Science from Averett University in Southern Virginia, Ostrovsky worked for a small American corporation as a global business development manager. Simultaneously, he worked as the Executive Director of ClickUkraine (http://www.usukraine.org/clickUkraine.shtml), a program Ostrovsky started in 2003 while interning at the US-Ukraine Foundation in Washington.

The main focus of this independent grassroots project is to bring computers and basic computer literacy education to foster children in his homeland. ClickUkraine has been largely supported by the Danville-Riverview Rotary Club (South Virginia), the Dnipropetrovsk Rotary Club (East Ukraine) and the Samuel Huntington Fund in Massachusetts.

“Through ClickUkraine, I’m capable of affecting the change in the lives of orphaned children. They are part of the population who are least protected from socio-economic injustices in Ukraine,” Ostrovsky says.

The fellowship program has also helped him to understand social issues facing Ukraine within a broader, global context and to make contacts around the world. As part of the fellowship, Ostrovsky interned in Egypt with the United Nations Development Program, where he worked with the regional HIV/AIDS program for Arab States. “I learned about the field operations of United Nations and saw how the organization is involved on the ground level in changing the world for the better one step at a time,” he says.

Efforts to foster international understanding and peace are an important part of Rotary’s heritage. The founding of the United Nations was influenced by Rotarian participation, and Rotary still enjoys a special observer status at the UN. Also, UNICEF and other international organizations were founded with the participation of Rotary.

Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders, worldwide, who provide humanitarian service and help to build goodwill and peace. Paul P. Harris founded the world’s first service club 1905 in Chicago. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 32,000 Rotary clubs in nearly 170 countries. 729 Ukrainian Rotary members from 41 clubs work on programs to combat issues ranging from poverty, to health care, technology programs and vocational training