Plast organization in Ukraine grows and implements new programs (08/27/00)

Plast organization in Ukraine grows and implements new programs

by Oksana Zakydalsky

LVIV/KYIV - Half a year after Plast's sixth general meeting in Kyiv (see The Ukrainian Weekly, January 16), Andriy Harmatii, who heads the Plast National Executive, expounded on the changes and new programs in Plast since last November. He said the National Executive had devoted a lot of its attention to implementing structural changes in the organization.

The regional structure, which divided the country into 11 regions, with a representative of the National Executive heading each region, was working well. The organization is now establishing oblast-based branches in those oblasts where there are many Plast centers. The Lviv Oblast organization was the most recent (registered in February), and there are now nine such oblast organizations. Mr. Harmatii pointed out that the effectiveness of the decentralization is becoming evident as more people throughout the country know about Plast and its work.

He noted also that the National Executive has begun operating on a professional basis - 10 people, each with his or her area of responsibility, now work in salaried positions. Because they can devote their full time to their responsibilities, the number of projects in the works and the number of leadership training courses organized in the past six months has risen significantly.

The national office is headquartered in Lviv (with a branch in Kyiv) and the following officers work through it: Rostyslav Dobosh (internal affairs) coordinates the work of the regional representatives, collects annual reports, gives consultations on legal matters such as registrations and membership dues, and looks after the publication of newsletters and information bulletins; Vasyl Schekun (development) is responsible for getting information about Plast to new regions (just recently a Plast group was established in the oblast of Ukraine - Sumy); Ihor Markus (external affairs) maintains contact with other scout organizations, both in Ukraine and around the globe, and searches out international youth programs that can be brought to Ukraine (such as the Duke of Edinborough Awards); Natalka Skaskiv (financial) holds a very difficult position as the legal and tax inspection demands on organizations in Ukraine are very onerous and she is also responsible for finding sponsors and working with them as well as developing plans on how Plast can become financially self-sufficient; several people - Taras Polykhata, Nadia Tsiura, Marichka Artish - work with Oksana Zalipska in developing and improving programs and conducting leadership training for Plast's two core groups, "yunatstvo" (age 12-18) and "novatstvo" (age 6-11), and their leaders. Finally, Mr. Harmatii coordinates the work of the national office and sits on the National Council, the decision-making body of Plast.

This new way of working - the reliance on a professional executive staff - may differ from the way Plast in the diaspora operates, but this structure is in line with national scouting organizations in other countries, such as Canada and the United States, where a professional executive performs administrative, program development and training functions. Currently the salaries of the national executive are being financed through the fund-raising efforts of Dr. Lubomyr Romankiw, the chief scout of Plast, who, together with Plast in Ukraine, has set up the Chief Scout Fund in Ukraine for this purpose.

One of the things that has helped the new executive in its organizational work has been Plast's inclusion in the Civil Society Community Roots Project (funded by CIDA - the Canadian International Development Agency) being run in Ukraine by the Canadian Bureau of International Education. Plast is one of the Ukrainian partners in the project, whose aim is to help the development of non-governmental organizations. Seven members of the Plast National Executive were recently sent to the Institute of Community Organization Management at Lviv University to take courses in the management and administration of human and technical resources.

The institute, as another partner in the project, is developing courses to train people for work in non-governmental organizations. Because of their 10-year experience of working in such an organization, Plast members have become active participants in the development of these courses. According to Mr. Harmatii, who is the contact person in Plast for the project, the Canadians have commented many times on the valuable contribution Plast is making to the development of civil society in Ukraine.

With the project's assistance, Plast has set up a School of Organizational Development that provides training in administration. In June a training session for regional representatives was organized to focus on how to work with volunteers and how to develop a budget. Administration is a field that has not had enough attention as Plast is primarily an educational and training organization for youth, Mr. Harmatii said, while noting that Plast also needs administrators and people who will be trained in how to involve more adults in Plast, how to motivate them, and how to keep them involved.

On June 14 parliamentary hearings in the Verkhovna Rada were held on youth policy, and Plast was given the opportunity to make a presentation. At this hearing various materials about youth organizations were given out, including a survey conducted by the Institute of Social Research, in which one of the questions had been: Name three youth organizations whose work is best known to you. Plast came out in first place (just inching out Komsomol organizations), with twice as many votes as the organization in third place, Molodyi Rukh. Other organizations were far behind. Mr. Harmatii, who took part in this hearing, stated: "This was a very moving moment for me as I realized how far we had come in the last few years and that the changes we are bringing in are working. People are beginning to appreciate us."

Plast was asked by the Cabinet of Ministers to nominate a member for the Hrushevsky Award for Contribution to the Development of the Ukrainian State. Anhelina Klisch, an active young leader who had been a national executive member (she had also taken part in the Canadian National Scout Jamboree in 1997 at the invitation of Scouts Canada), was nominated, and the award was presented to her by Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko during this year's Youth Day (June 29).

Plast membership in Ukraine now stands at about 9,000, with 130 branches (stanytsi) and groups in every oblast in Ukraine. The name of the organization is now officially: Plast - National Scout Organization of Ukraine; the "national" (natsionalna) designation is given only with the approval of the President's Office and provides special status to the entities so named.

As regards Plast's relations with the World Organization of the Scouting Movement, Mr. Harmatii said there had been no change since the letter from the WOSM Committee was read at Plast's general meeting in November 1999. which stated that Plast was not being considered for membership in the official scouting movement.

The Plast leader explained:

"We have had no formal contacts with the World Scout Bureau since then, although we are maintaining an informal dialogue with their representatives. In the committee letter we were accused of an exclusive emphasis on patriotism. We keep stressing that Plast never limited itself exclusively to patriotism to one's state, but, on the contrary, Plast was always open to all Ukrainian youth, even in those days when there was no Ukrainian state. In its programs and activities, Plast always included an international outlook and took part in many international scouting events."

"I believe that the international scouting movement was formed precisely with the aim of achieving the goal of an international civil society. It is membership in a national scouting organization that helps to achieve this international society. I think that this problem of 'excessive patriotism' is not a real one; it has been unfairly foisted on Plast. We do know that the World Scout Bureau values the work Plast is doing in Ukraine and wants, in some way, to include Plast in the official scouting movement, but how this will be resolved, I really don't know."

The organization that WOSM has marked for possible membership - Scouts of Ukraine - is not yet registered as a national organization in Ukraine. In March of this year their partner organization, Sich, officially abandoned its designation as a scouting organization deciding to pursue a different program based more on Kozak traditions than scouting and left the Scouts of Ukraine.

A Kyiv press conference on July 5 was organized by Plast for the Kyiv media. Although it was mid-summer, some 13 media representatives showed up.

That week PiK magazine had run a provocative article about the financing of youth projects - an issue of no small concern to Plast. The article described how official financing of youth initiatives comes through two structures: the State Committee on Sport, Youth and Tourism, a government agency that has replaced the ministry of the same name, and the National Committee of Youth Organizations, a non-governmental association. To summarize, the article maintained that the criteria for the financing of youth projects are very fuzzy and that of the total 16 million hrv available, the 9 million given to the National Committee has ended up in organizations connected to the committee leadership. For example, the largest recipients were the Young Sea League, whose former head, Volodymyr Riabkin, now chairs the National Committee, and the Association of Young Scholars, whose head is the vice-chairman of the National Committee.

The PiK article provided the lead-in for Levko Zakharchyshyn, head of the Plast National Council, who was the main spokesman at the press conference. Mr. Zakharchyshyn highlighted the difficult financial position of Plast, which is not yet receiving the government support an organization of its size and reach should expect. He pointed out that, of the millions available from Kyiv for youth programs, last year Plast received a total of 8,400 hrv. Although Plast had planned an ambitious program of summer activities, some were hanging by a thread because of financing problems.

Mr. Polykhata, however, painted a bright picture, full of summer activities. A total of 80 camps were planned, each with 20 to 120 participants: 50 camps for yunatstvo, 13 for novatstvo, 10 more aimed at familiarizing school kids with Plast, and several leadership training camps (including "Zolota Bulava," "Lisova Shkola" and "Shkola Bulavnykh" - all transplanted from Canada and the United States in 1993). A group of 40 Plast members was setting out for Poland to take part in the organization's 10th anniversary celebrations there on July 12-22; in August another group was headed for Poland for a joint camp with Polish scouts, the second phase of which was to be held in Crimea under the sponsorship of Ukraine's armed forces.

The highlight of the press conference was Volodya Oleksyn's presentation about the second storming of Mont Blanc. The background to this story is set in 1947 when, after the World Scout Jamboree in France, two Plast members, Bohdan Jaciw and Ihor Sukhoversky, reached the 4,807-meter (15,800 foot) summit of Mount Blanc - Europe's highest peak. The two were the first Ukrainians to reach the top of the mountain. A group of six experienced mountaineers - five of them Plast members, including two women - were planning to duplicate the feat this August under Mr. Oleksyn's leadership. The initiator of this project is the same Bohdan Jaciw, now living in Toronto and a member of the Burlaky Plast fraternity, who climbed Mont Blanc 53 years ago. The group of six has been training in the Carpathian Mountains for ice, snow and rock climbing.

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