BRIDGING THE DIGITAL SKILLS AND LITERACY GAP

Ukraine: sparking creative thinking

“Our volunteers drive and determination motivated students to keep going no matter what and to do their best to achieve their aims,” said Katerina Solimchuk from a participating school in GoCamp 2018. “They enjoyed trying new and exciting things to discover a passion and talent they didn’t even know they possessed”. High school students in the remote regions of Ukraine were offered the educational opportunities of their urban peers, thanks to a Kyivstar-supported initiative called GoCamp.

Launched in 2018, foreign volunteers led summer camps to deliver a Kyivstar-created multimedia curriculum that encouraged school children from 12 to 15 years old to use modern techniques and creative thinking to develop new ideas for mobile applications. In 2018, specific parts of the course included interactive training in entrepreneurship and innovation for more than 2,000 students at 75 schools. The project was implemented across 19 regions where students identified 100 new ideas for mobile apps.

“Video calls extended the reach of the project,” says Katerina. “Our school had multiple calls with our Kyivstar mentors, who listened to the students’ ideas and gave them advice to improve their projects.”

GoCamp also offers training webinars for teachers and would-be mentors throughout Ukraine, and in 2018, more than 25 employees of Kyvistar became mentors in schools and helped students to carry out project work. As a result of its success and the interest of other younger children in participating in the future, the programme will be extended to all age-groups in 2019. Yuriy Chornenkiy, Head of Marketing Communication says: “As a mentor to children aged 10 to 12, together we developed six new application ideas that were useful, scalable and have the potential to be commercially viable. It is rewarding that the children wanted to seek and discover new things for themselves”.

Katerina Solimchuk
GoCamp school representative