The hardships and anxieties experienced by the children of Ukraine – indeed the whole population – are being addressed in many ways by the international Rotary community.
In a ground-breaking initiative of the Rotary Club of Warsaw, Poland, with financial support from District 9705 and other Rotarians in Australia and Germany, a total of 78 Ukrainian school children and their teachers recently completed two 10-day periods of recreation and learning in Poland.
The visitors were accommodated at Klub Sosnowy (the Pine Club Resort), 10km from Warsaw. The program included indoor and outdoor sports activities, classes in the knowledge of modern society, an introduction to the Latin alphabet, Polish and English phrases and trips to the centre of Warsaw visiting the Old Town, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Copernicus Science Centre and other highlights.
The project was some 12 months in the making, with the first 10-day camp starting on July 23, 2023, the second starting on August 20.
The project’s total cost was 21,000 Euros (around AU$35,000). The Rotary Club of Warsaw made the largest contribution. The Rotary Club of Canberra Burley Griffin, the Rotary Club of Hall, and several Australian Rotarians together contributed a total of $9,500 (5,800 Euros). The Rotary Club of Frankfurt also made a significant contribution to the project.
The operator of Klub Sosnowy, Wieslaw Migut, became so personally committed to the project that he funded an increase in the number of participants from the initial 50 to 78.
The first group of 38 children and teachers came from Zaporozhye in the south-eastern war zone of Ukraine, around 1,060km from Warsaw. The second group of 40 participants came from Vinnitsa near Lviv in western Ukraine, around 420km from Warsaw.
The project is another example of the longstanding relationship between Rotary in Poland and Rotary District 9705 in Australia. It was Past District Governor Jack Olsson, a member of the Rotary Club of Canberra, who represented Rotary International in re-establishing Rotary in Poland in the 1990s after it had been banned in many Eastern European countries. Jack was also instrumental in establishing the Rotary Club of Canberra Burley Griffin in 1987 and in furthering Rotary’s links between Australia and Poland.