After graduating from Tufts, Dmytro returned to Ukraine to continue his work at the boarding school for children who are growing up without parents. The children have missed him tremendously while he was away and were thrilled to have him back. Dmytro currently works as their teacher of English and is also a part-time lecturer at one of the local universities as one of the finalists of the Soros Foundation Alumni Program grant.

Dmytro teaches 10th and 11th grades and has about 20 students in each of them. He also runs “English tutoring sessions” after school and helps children learn English grammar by though the songs of Beatles and other popular bands. He writes “ it is quite an experience for me, … as I do not consider myself to be musically gifted.” 

The school is situated about 50 miles from the city, so occasionally, if he misses his bus, Dmytro spends the night at the school. In those cases he continues to offer fun activities, as otherwise children will spend the whole evening watching TV. He brought a chess set to the school, and to his great surprise it became extremely popular. The children have been having chess championships almost every night since then.

The other popular activity is story-telling, through which Dmytro hopes to promote interest to reading books. Small kids love to hear stories about “The Gingerbread Man – the Transformer” and Dmytro had to make up a continuation to it.

The Project Phoenix Dmytro started has continued during his absence and is currently run by a group of university students. They have been visiting the children and organizing fun educational activities. Dmytro writes, “For some unknown to me reason small kids dub these students “Americans” even though they are 100% Ukrainians”. Dmytro hopes that these visits, combined with his presence will have a greater impact on kids. The team is planning a book drive for the New Year and a leadership-arts camp for them in the summer of 2010, if Dmytro survives the year of teaching.

To find out more, contact please Dmytro Say.