It was cold in the city of Taraz on the day when Olga Greenberg and Maxim Butchenko returned from Almaty from the Third Youth Forum. And, despite the fact that much of their mood was spoilt by forthcoming session of examinations, they were amused by the year’s first snowfall. Cheerful and joyful young people came to Hesed continuing the snowballs contest.

Maxim and Olga have told us about the Youth Forum.

- I was at the Forum for the first time. I have so much excitement that I can talk about it nonstop forever - shared his impressions Maxim, - I was pleased to communicate with the participants. All of them were very friendly, and we chatted like the old acquaintances. This was facilitated by the support provided for us. Even the report on the work prepared has been organised in a very interesting form: we split into smaller groups and went to the different rooms. Jacob was the leader of our group. I talked about our concerns and projects. After half an hour time, which was allowed for discussion, we all once again have gathered in the same room. This time the leaders of the groups talked about the challenges and successes of those cities to which representatives it was possible to correspond.

- The next day after breakfast we met again and discussed the work of our Council in anticipation of the upcoming elections. As Olga and I were at the Forum for the first time we have decided that we were not ready to put ourselves forward as the nominees yet.

 - On the third day we summed up the Forum. We were not looking forward to parting with the other participants of the Forum in the evening as we just have become friends, but were happy to go home with the inspiration of many interesting games and memories.

In the hometown Maxim and Olga have demonstrated some games brought by them from the seminar: "The Hare and the ticket", "The Fanta, Pepsi, Coca-Cola" and others. Participants felt that they became more active and united, all of them cheered up. Playing "the Hare and the ticket", each contestant not only tried to catch "the ticket" faster, but also "ticket" aspired not to put the owner down. Of course, this was a very good game for team building. The game "Clay" where everyone showed the lots of creativity was very much liked. Everybody had to create a picture according to their own plan. We saw how different we are, every person has his or her own flight of the imagination. It was very interesting, showed various ideas and promoted our inventiveness. After the games all the children felt happy and ran outside to play "snowballs" again. This was a remarkable day! Olga and Maxim promised to show some new games which have learnt at the Forum on the following meetings.


We would like to express our gratitude to the organizers of the forum which helped us to cultivate leadership qualities and learn how to unite our youth and elevate its interest in our ideas. And, of course, thanks to the Director of our Hesed Elena Dmitrieva for her support.

Maria Koroleva