I started playing sports back in my school days when I joined a boxing section with my friends. Our coach, Mykola Balytskyi, was a good psychologist. He knew how to find the right words for everyone: sometimes to support and sometimes to criticize. We were all extremely motivated by his advice. I really wanted to continue boxing in the future and was a prize-winner at 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 a different path.

I started studying at the National Agrarian University, where I continued to play sports. Then my coach, Mykola Fedorovych, asked me to help him coach and at the same time passed on his experience to me. So it turns out that I was again in the role of a pupil, but not in the sports field, but in the pedagogical field. And now I am continuing his work and I want to pass on the knowledge I received from him to my students.

So I worked at the Fortress sports club in my native village of Shevchenkove. At one point, I realized that I wanted to find additional experience for myself by combining coaching with something else related to sports. I tried different classes, but decided to focus on teaching. That's how I became a physical education teacher, almost by accident.

In pedagogy, I found my mission: to harmoniously develop children's personalities through sports and physical education.

I believe that sports can help you develop perseverance, the ability to overcome obstacles and work on your emotions. In addition, sport teaches us to get out of our comfort zone and fight our fears and doubts. Children hone all these skills when they train, learn new sports techniques and go to competitions.

I'm very happy when my students become the best version of themselves, because it helps them succeed in any field of life in the future, be it business, politics or art.

It's no secret that the profession of a physical education teacher is not very prestigious in financial terms, but I found my motivation in sports and teaching. I love it, and I never stand still for a single moment, constantly developing, taking educational courses and joining various projects.

However, the work of a physical education teacher is not only full of achievements, pride in your students, new opportunities, and professional results. It is a constant path through challenges!

What kind of challenges? Children who are motivated to play sports come to the section, which cannot be said about school physical education classes, where not everyone is eager to play sports. Children are just there because they have nowhere else to go. In addition, there are children with different physical characteristics, ages, psychology, and goals at school. That is why we need to find different approaches to them.

That's why I applied for the Parcel of Success project: to improve my skills in working with children and to be able to respond to similar challenges in the future, including a lack of motivation among students.

I really enjoyed 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 to have the opportunity to talk to experts after the lectures. I personally received very good advice from Oleksandr Baranivka and Andriy Kozinchuk. When the children chose the topic of bullying as a project, we managed to give very informative lectures that both senior and junior high school students liked. Even back in the section, they asked me to give them the same lecture.

Although I have studied at other educational programs and courses, I like the "Parcel of Success" because the project does not only send sports equipment to schools. There are also opportunities for training, development and improvement of physical education teachers.

I believe that sports equipment itself is worthless if you give it to unmotivated people, and we won't get any results. And if you give interesting lessons, meet the needs of children, then in exchange you get the energy of students and the desire to improve the result - it is incredibly inspiring to develop further.

I am very democratic and allow children to do a lot, for which I have even received criticism from colleagues! But it is then that children open up and give a kind of return, they work, they move, and movement is the key to good health and immunity, which is extremely important in a pandemic.

For me, participation in the project is also about recognizing that my work is important to others. Therefore, we do not stop here, but move on!