Earlier in the fund we had volunteers-students in the communications department, and this year we received requests for volunteering in the Klitschko Foundation from teenagers.

So they decided: a communication volunteering project for teenagers to be! Thus the Skills Elevator appeared.

The project aims to develop adolescent communication skills through volunteering.

The participants of the Skills Elevator project were 14 motivated teenagers who filled out a questionnaire and also took part in the #writeforyourdreamKF post-writing challenge. The topics of the challenge were as follows: the world in 50 years, inequality in the equal world, your superpower, challenges in life. And participants had the opportunity to write a post on a free topic. By the way, it is under this hashtag #writeforyourdreamKF that you can find their posts on Facebook and Instagram!

For 9 days, Skills Elevator participants had the opportunity to listen to lectures on the following topics:

-’Social Networks’ by Maria Palivoda;

-’Fundamentals of Copywriting’ by Rina Asobina;

-’Storytelling’ by Tatiana Matychak;

-’Communications’ by Elena Prokopchuk;

-’Creativity in the XXI century’ by Sofia Tarasyuk;

-’Working with the media’ by Marichka Paplauskaite;

-’Fundamentals of Design’ by Elena Kuzmina;

-’Writing articles through storytelling’ by Lyubko Deresh;

-’Fact Checking’ from Anastasia Ivantsova;

-’Opportunities in the field of communications- by Daria Chizh.

From Rina Asobina and Tetyana Matychak, participants received personal feedback on their work: cover letters to resumes and life stories. This helped participants to analyze their texts and work out mistakes. In addition, the speakers gave their recommendations to the participants, so now they know what aspects everyone needs to improve.

One of the project's speakers, Rina Asobina, shared her impressions of our cooperation in the project: ‘Cooperation with the Klitschko Foundation within the Skills Elevator project once again convinced me that proactive young people need help. We are specialists in today's market, and schoolchildren and students are our confidence in the future. They are our future, and how we support young people, what advice and recommendations we provide, how positively we will influence their desire to acquire professional skills by our own example, will depend on the level of specialists who will replenish the Ukrainian labor market. I am convinced that such initiatives should be created as much as possible and their organization should be treated as responsibly as possible. This is exactly what I saw with my own eyes, working with the Klitschko Foundation.’

In addition to lectures, team members worked together to create pages on social networks, as well as had individual tasks. And teenagers have access to a huge number of useful resources, as well as tools that participants can use and improve their development skills — books, movies, websites, Telegram-channels, articles, videos and more.

Throughout the project, participants were assisted by 5 superhero mentors! They came to the aid of participants during team tasks, as well as shared their own experiences.

Mentor Oleksiy Karkachov spoke about mentoring at Skills Elevator: ‘This was my first experience of mentoring. Last time, while volunteering at the foundation, I had the opportunity to observe and communicate with active teenagers. I was struck by their desire to create something and determination. So I decided that if there was something I could do to help them develop at the Skills Elevator project, it was worth trying. It was a very responsible job to evaluate the work of the project participants, even a bit stressful, because when checking the work I realized that my teenager's participation in the project and his chances for volunteering depend in part on my decision. And this is very responsible! But I believe that it was not in vain, and the teenagers who took part in the ‘Skills Elevator’ learned as much information as possible, developed skills and found useful acquaintances to put their ideas into reality. So, thank you to all the participants, the team of mentors and project organizers.’

Networks were also an integral part of the project! Together with the participants, we had reflections on which they expressed their impressions about the project, the knowledge they gained, dreams and plans for the future. Together with the participants we held an ‘Evening of Stories’ — shared memories from our own childhood, talked about successes, fakaps, told about their experiences and at the same time practiced storytelling skills!

One of the participants in the project, Elizaveta, shared her impressions of the Skills Elevator project: ‘The project has become a valuable source of information for me personally. First, I liked the fact that the speakers and organizers, in addition to the main material, shared their experiences and gave practical advice. Secondly, the program was aptly created, because there were lectures, and individual tasks, and teamwork. Thanks to the project, I changed my outlook by 180 °, and now the spheres of journalism and media have become an integral part of my interests. I developed the skills of storytelling and fact-checking, because I was not familiar with these industries. And I was lucky to get personal feedback from the speaker — Tatiana Matychak. On her advice, I want to create my own Telegram channel, which will contain stories about my life or fictional stories. And one of the dreams I want to realize is to create my own project for teenagers about leadership and psychology, because, in my opinion, it is important for preparation for adult life. Therefore, I am grateful to the organizers for the inspiration!’

Among the participants, we selected 5 volunteers based on their motivation and activity on the project. Over the next month, they will join the communication department of the foundation and will be able to test their strength on real tasks!

Follow the success of our volunteers on the foundation's Facebook and Instagram pages!