On May 28, 2021, the International Institute of Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations, Lviv Polytechnic National University, in partnership and with the support of Vira Konyk, Regional Vice President of the Ukrainian World Congress in Central and Eastern Europe, organized the first webinar-workshop to acquaint Ukrainian educators in Central and Eastern Europe with the Ukrainian Educational Universe portal.
The Ukrainian Educational Universe portal is the world’s first online map of Ukrainian educational institutions abroad. Here you can learn about Ukrainian educational institutions in different parts of the world, get acquainted with their activities and share your experience or materials at a teachers’ forum.
Vira Konyk expressed her gratitude to the IECDR team for creating such a platform and holding an important webinar for educators: «Probably everyone knows how difficult it is to teach children their native language and culture abroad. How difficult it is to maintain an identity. These people adore their job and often sacrifice their time and family».
And, indeed, it is Ukrainian teachers who undertake the mission of preserving identity and cultivating love for Ukrainian culture. It is not for nothing that Iryna Kliuchkovska, the IECDR Director, calls teachers stars in our sky. After all, they give life to our «Universe» and make it alive. Therefore, it is our duty to help them: «We believe that we have a duty to help teachers who work so sacrificially and to give them the tools so that they can benefit and make their work easier».
Oksana Levytska, Chairman of the UWC International Educational Coordinating Council, expressed her hopes for joint productive work: «I am really glad that IECDR took the initiative to hold such workshops, I think it is very important that we all join this portal».
The project managers of the portal, Olena Mytsko, Nataliia Martynyshyn and Halyna Temnyk, acquainted the participants of the webinar-workshop with the work on the Ukrainian Educational Universe portal. Every stage was commented on: from registration to publishing information on the forum. In particular, they explained how to create and find a certain educational institution on the map, how to add information to the «News» section, as well as the facilities of the forum as a platform for exchanging materials or ideas of Ukrainian educators.
For IECDR this is only the first step towards working with the portal, because ahead there is the expansion of its functionality and more possibilities to unite Ukrainian educators from around the world.