In the Carpathian village of Babyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region, the Summer School for active students of the Alliance of Ukrainian Universities has ended. At the same time, the event was also a volunteer BUR-camp (BUR-camp is a volunteer construction camp in small towns or villages of Ukraine, which attracts young people from all over the country to volunteer).

Over the course of a week, about two hundred students from six education institutions - members of the Alliance, including NUWEE, generated ideas, exchanged opinions, worked and rested in a comfortable and safe environment. And they also became participants in the Rainbow Picnic, a secret activity, an evening of volunteer initiatives.

The program was quite full, an important component of which was not only acquaintance, but also the development of contacts and platforms for effective cooperation between university youth and public organizations, proposals for improving the work of student self-government and involving youth in activities.

And the participants of the Summer School got a great opportunity to get to know the culture and region, local traditions and customs, organizations and cultural institutions. For faster communication, the event participants planned to create a platform on Discord or Telegram/WhatsApp.

Our students - participants of the Summer School shared their impressions: "The overall impression is excellent. Work takes up half of all time, and the other half is the cultural and educational program. It is quite comfortable, but the schedule could be adjusted. For example: work in the morning, the intellectual part during lunch, and continue to work closer to the evening. It would be possible to increase the duration of the camp to ten days, so that there would be enough time for rest. What I remembered most was joint work and parallel communication. While working, we learned a lot about each other, about educational institutions. During the intellectual part, we discussed the problems of universities, the strategy for solving them, and implementation options. In general, I really liked everything. I would gladly visit such an event again and think about new, interesting projects. I hope that there will be another such opportunity," - says Dariia Zavediuk, a first-year student at the Institute of Economics and Management.

"At the BUR camp, I was able to test and learn about myself. I had a great time here with the team. Together we solved many tasks, developed a plan to improve cooperation between universities. It would be great if such an initiative continued," says Vasyl Syrvvko, a third-year student of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Head of the Student Parliament.

Nataliia PARKHOMCHUK,
Public Relations Department