A meeting with Violetta Piora at our Rotary District 7070 Conference in Oshawa, Ontario in May 2022, just after her session; has become a joint project extraordinaire! The Rotary Club of Scarborough, in conjunction with the Global Guardian Project of Durham College and the Rotary Global Classroom at Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario Canada are supporting orphans in Ukraine. This orphanage is located in a remote mountainous village and has over 93 young children in its’ care. The goal of this project is to help these students learn English and restart their education.......
In late September, Violetta Piora, Matthew Binkley, and Violetta’s sister Anastasia took 16 Chromebooks (provided by the Rotary Club of Scarborough, along with a few used donated devices from fellow Rotarians) to the orphanage. Accompanying the devices, was the information needed to install the Free Reading Program, which now has an instruction video that had been translated into Ukrainian. Installation of the program was done by Matthew – the IT expert.
Two weeks ago, via the Rotary Global Classroom with founder and Professor Lon Appleby, we were able to see the faces of a couple of these students in the classroom that Violetta, Matthew, and Anastasia have set up. What a thrill! I felt they were as thrilled as us knowing that people so far away cared!
We are now moving forward and hoping to connect with the orphanage once a week!!! Power and bandwidth are an issue, but we are going to persevere. We have a teacher willing to work with us and the students. This teacher is a valuable resource as she speaks both Ukrainian and English fluently.
After an update on the project was provided for students who attend locally and from around the world, Lon commented: This is digital humanity.
Here are some of the photos:
