I started playing sports during my school years, when I came to the boxing section with my friends. Our coach, Mykola Fedorovich Palitsky, was a good psychologist. He was able to choose the right words for everyone: sometimes to support and sometimes to criticise. We were all extremely motivated by his advice. At the time, I really wanted to continue boxing in the future and I won regional and national competitions. However, when I was invited to the Olympic Reserve School, my father did not share my aspirations. So I had to choose another career path.

I started studying at the National Agrarian University, where I also continued to play sports. Then my coach, Mykola Fedorovych, asked me to help him train and at the same time shared his experience with me. So it came to be that I was again in the role of a pupil, but not in a sports context, rather in the educational direction. And now I continue Mykola’s activities – I want to pass on to my students the knowledge I gained from him.

I worked in the sports club "Fortecia" in my home village of Shevchenkove. At one point, I realised that I wanted to find more experience for myself by combining coaching with something related to sports. I tried different classes, but decided to focus on education. That’s how, essentially by accident, I became a physical education teacher.

By working in education, I found my mission: to develop children's personalities through sports and physical education.

I believe that sports can develop perseverance, the ability to overcome obstacles and manage one’s emotions. In addition, sport teaches us to step out of our comfort zone and deal with our fears and doubts. Children hone all this when they train, learn new sports techniques and go to competitions.

I am very happy when my students become a better version of themselves, because it helps them succeed in any area of ​​life in the future, be it business, politics or art.

It is no secret that the profession of physical education teacher is not very prestigious in financial terms, but in sports and teaching, I found my vocation. I like my job and I never stand still, I am constantly evolving, taking educational courses and joining various projects.

However, the work of a physical education teacher is full not only of achievements, pride in our students, new opportunities and professional results. There are constant challenges!

What challenges exactly? Motivated children play sports voluntarily, because they enjoy it, which is not the case with school physical education classes, where not everyone is keen on sports. Children are just in class because they have nowhere to go. In addition, any school has children with different physical characteristics, ages, attitudes and goals. That is why we need to find different approaches to work with them. That's why I applied to the project "Success Parcel" to improve my skills in working with children and to be able to respond to such challenges in the future, in particular the lack of motivation of certain students.

I really liked the project. Impactum is a very cool platform where everything is accessible and clear. It was nice to meet people with similar values, which is also very important. It was great that there was an opportunity to talk to experts after the lectures. I personally received some very cool advice from a sports psychologist, Marina Mospan. When the children chose the topic of bullying as a project, they managed to give very informative presentations, which were enjoyed by both senior and junior classes. My members of the section asked me to give a lecture to them as well

Although I have attended other educational programmes and courses, I like The Success Parcel because the project not only sends sports equipment to schools, but does much more. There are also opportunities for training, development and the improvement of physical education teachers.

I believe that sports equipment in itself is not worth anything if you give it to unmotivated people, and we will not get results from this. However, if you conduct interesting lessons and meet the needs of children, then in exchange you get the energy of students and their desire to improve their results – it is incredibly inspiring to develop them further.

I am very democratic and allow children a lot of free rein, for which I even received criticism from colleagues! But that's when the children open up