Description of Service (aka what i did for 2 years)

Hey all, thought y'all might be interested in this. Below is the official description of my Peace Corps service on file at headquarters. This is the only official written documentation that tells my story. Happy reading!

Description of Peace Corps Service

Benjamin Robbins
Ukraine
(April 2009 – June 2011)

After a competitive application process emphasizing professional skills, motivation, adaptability, cross-cultural understanding and medical fitness, Peace Corps invited Mr. Benjamin Robbins to serve as a Youth Development Volunteer in Ukraine.

Pre-service training
On April 1st, 2009, Mr. Robbins joined the 36th group of Peace Corps Volunteers to serve in Ukraine. He entered an intensive 11-week community-based training program. The training program included 200 hours of Russian language training, 80 hours of technical training on youth policy and youth development in Ukraine, including eight weeks of classroom teaching and summer youth camp practice, 60 hours of cross-cultural studies (history, economy, cultural norms). To reinforce language and cross-cultural learning, Mr. Robbins lived with a Ukrainian family in Baryshivka in Kyiv Region throughout training.

In preparation for his Peace Corps service, Mr. Robbins, while a trainee, taught at Baryshivka School No. 2. While at Baryshivka School No. 2, Mr. Robbins taught Healthy Lifestyles and organized extracurricular activities such as an English club, summer day camp, and a sports day.

Assignment
The U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires, a. i., James D. Pettit swore in Mr. Robbins as a Peace Corps Volunteer on June 18th, 2009 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Mr. Robbins was assigned to Novodmitrovka, Donetska oblast, a village of 300 Ukrainian and Russian speakers in southeastern Ukraine. He worked as a teacher of the focus areas of the Youth Development project at Novodmitrovka Educational Complex, which has a student body of 400 students in grades 1-11 and 30 teachers. As Mr. Robbins arrived at site before the school year began, Mr. Robbins attended a summer camp in Svyatagorsk, Donetska Oblast, of 300 area students ages 4 – 17. There he taught sports and worked as a counselor in the upbringing and supervision of the campers. He also organized and participated in evening activities through which he showed American traditions and culture.

Beginning on September 1, 2009 at Novodmitrovka Educational Complex (NEC), under the supervision of the Ministry of Youth Family and Sports, Mr. Robbins began several projects to address areas of students’ education and upbringing that were lacking or unavailable in coordination with the Assistant Director of Extracurricular Activities, Nadezhda Kodenkova. His primary weekly tasks were a 1 hour English club, 3 hours of sports clubs, 3 hours of weight lifting clubs, 17 hours of team English teaching, and playing games with younger students during class breaks. The English club provided the opportunity for students whose lessons ended early to receive extra practice with basic English from a native English speaker. During sports clubs, Mr. Robbins taught students American sports as a way to learn about American culture, provide fun and interesting ways for students to be active, and develop coordination skills through sports students had yet to experience. The weight lifting club provided an opportunity to utilize the rarely used weight room in the basement of the school, allowed older students to exercise, and provided opportunities for Mr. Robbins to act as a role model for older students. Through team teaching during English lessons, he was able to develop activities for youth development topics covered in the curriculum such as healthy lifestyles, country studies, leadership, professions, etc. He was able to incorporate multimedia and communicative methods into these lessons which were adopted by the English teachers.

Mr. Robbins also planned and participated in several multicultural exchanges. Through his mother’s 3rd grade class in America he was able to establish multiple correspondence exchanges with students from NEC. He was able to exchange valentines between his mother’s class and the students of NEC by mail. After his mother’s visit to Ukraine she held a Ukraine Day for her class during which they cooked traditional Ukrainian foods and learned about Ukrainian culture. A similar holiday was held for her class near Easter for which Mr. Robbins sent painted eggs from Ukraine for the students. He also participated in several video chat sessions with American students to describe Ukrainian culture. He baked American cookies to be sold at a school bake sale and gave the proceeds to the school. At a ceremony, Mr. Robbins was inducted into the Brotherhood of Cossacks. He gave a speech at a local meeting on Victory Day to stress solidarity between America and Ukraine with the victory of World War II.

Mr. Robbins invited a teacher to attend a PEPFAR HIV/AIDS Awareness training in Kiev and planned a large project to be funded by a grant which would educate the students and teachers of NEC about HIV/AIDS prevention and train a group of students to teach these topics to smaller village schools, though this project was not implemented. Next, Mr. Robbins planned a leadership course for students during the first two weeks of summer after school ended on May 31. This project was more successful as he taught two 1 hour lessons for 5 days with another volunteer, Mattison Brady. Mr. Robbins also participated in the summer day camp at NEC for younger students for 5 days and played games with the children.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2010 Mr. Robbins worked with Nadezhda Kodenkova on writing a SPA grant to receive equipment and support for trainings for a journalism club at NEC. This project turned out to be a large success as NEC now has an active group of 15 students who participate in the publishing of the school newspaper “Smile of Fortune” using the computer and printer bought with grant funds. This paper is the only one of its kind in the region and one of three in the oblast. This project has proven itself to be sustainable once Mr. Robbins leaves.

Despite the setbacks in his daily activities, Mr. Robbins was able to maintain his American sports club and assistance at English lessons. In addition he began helping with P.E. lessons. There he was able to teach American sports in a more formal setting, as well as train the P.E. teachers on methods and techniques for coaching American sports. Mr. Robbins assisted one P.E. teacher to film two such lessons, one on American football and another on ultimate Frisbee, to be submitted to an oblast competition.

Mr. Robbins also planned an Anti-smoking Day in coordination with International Non-smoking day. He planned demonstrations, a poster contest, and a short speech. The poster contest was marginally successful with 4 entries but the speech and demonstrations were cancelled due to a last minute lack of support from Nadeshda Kodenkova despite earlier promises of time and resources.

Besides his daily activities at NEC, Mr. Robbins conducted several secondary projects in the community in which he lived, Konstantinovka, a town of 70,000 residents. Through the help of a local newspaper reporter, Vladimir Berezin, Mr. Robbins organized a community English club at a local history museum which was active for the duration of his service. Topics for the English club initially centered around a memoir written in English by a former citizen of Konstantinovka who was imprisoned in Nazi work camps during WWII. This served to raise awareness of a neglected part of those who suffered during WWII, eastern Europeans, leading to a permanent exhibit on the subject at the museum. Later, with the help of an English teacher from a nearby agricultural technical school, Inna Ilyina, topics for the club centered around leadership and communication. The club saw an average attendance of 10 participants from various schools throughout Konstantinovka who were typically 16 – 17 years old, though occasionally older and younger people participated.

Mr. Robbins also taught youth development topics at other schools at the invitation of different English teachers. At Konstantinovka School 13 he was able to teach healthy lifestyles topics 2 days a week to 6 classes for 2 months until the NEC director expressed resentment at his working with another school. Later, he was able to teach leadership and communication lessons at Konstantinovka Agricultural Technical School for 1.5 hours a week with his contact Inna Ilyina for 6 months. The students and teachers were very receptive of these lessons, leading the technical school to apply for a Peace Corps volunteer of their own. All resources used for the lessons were given to Inna so that she would be able to conduct similar lessons in the future.

During the summer of 2010, Mr. Robbins worked at a volunteer planned English summer camp for 200 Ukrainian students named Camp LEAD. For 5 days he taught leadership and project design and management lessons to a class of 30 students ages 13 – 16 years old in the city of Krivoy Rog. His other responsibilities included supervising and playing games with students.

Mr. Robbins also served on the director’s committee for the HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention focused Camp HEAL in September, 2010. The camp was located in Gorlovka, Donetska oblast, and hosted 50 university level students for 3 days. He was responsible for planning activities such as team building and leadership development games and general entertainment such as evening discos and warm up games. He also contributed to the general planning and development for the camp as well as taught lessons during the camp. He made recommendations and advised the future camp directors in order to continue the camp’s success.

Mr. Robbins was very active in one of Peace Corps Ukraine’s working groups, the Healthy Lifestyles Working Group. The purpose of the group is to develop materials and activities which promote and support volunteer and Ukrainian nationals’ health. He helped plan excursions and events such as an ultimate Frisbee weekend to provide volunteers with opportunities to exercise. He developed materials and activities such as those used for his Anti Smoking Day. He used materials gathered by the working group in his lessons at English Club as well as School 13 and the Agricultural Technicum. Mr. Robbins’ biggest contribution to the working group was site development for the working group summer camp, Camp SLAM (Strengthening Lifestyles and Minds). For several years the working group had been attempting to hold a healthy lifestyles based summer camp for Ukrainian students, but was unsuccessful as a potential site could not be identified. Through his contact, Inna Ilyin, Mr. Robbins was able to identify Konstantinovka Agricultural Technicum as a potential location for Camp SLAM, a 5 day summer camp focused on healthy lifestyles and leadership for 100 Ukrainian students. After several meetings with the administration and planning with the working group, the technicum agreed to host the summer camp at reasonable rates and was very welcoming of working with Peace Corps volunteers. Mr. Robbins then assisted in writing a Partnership Grant to fund the camp and in planning the specific details of the camp. At Inna Ilyin’s invitation, he began leadership trainings for a group of students from the technicum who wanted to serve at the camp in a leadership capacity. As the camp was scheduled to take place in July, Mr. Robbins was unable to attend and see the final results of this work.

Mr. Robbins worked hard to learn Russian as any of his work outside of the English classroom was conducted in Russian. He attended tutoring 1-2 times a week and attended an in-service language refresher provided by Peace Corps in January 2010. At the end of his service he achieved Intermediate High on the Language Proficiency Interview.

Following Ukraine's Declaration of Independence in 1991 and its decision to become an independent democratic country, a bilateral agreement was signed by US and Ukrainian Presidents to establish a U.S. Peace Corps Program in Ukraine in 1992. Since then, US Peace Corps Volunteers have been serving in Ukraine in the areas of business development, education, environmental protection, youth development, and community development. Mr. Robbins work as a Youth Development Volunteer, as well as his role as a representative of the people, culture, values and traditions of the United States of America, was part of a nation-wide development effort in Ukraine.