CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Group for Tomorrow’s Ukraine, together with the Harvard Ukrainian Student Society, is leading an experiential trip to Ukraine for Harvard University graduate students on May 14-22. Twenty students from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School are traveling in Ukraine to witness reforms in action and engage first-hand with a country in democratic transition.
The Group for Tomorrow’s Ukraine (GTU) is a non-profit organization of young professionals and academics offering analysis on Ukraine and dedicated to promoting human rights as the country rapidly changes. GTU hopes to introduce these Harvard students – future leaders in the public, private and non-profit sectors – to Ukraine.
The itinerary, which will take the group to Kyiv and Lviv, will include a packed schedule of meetings with representatives of Ukraine’s government, members of parliament, key figures in media and industry, Ukraine-based members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment such as Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, and others. Students will also take in cultural, historical and leisure activities in Ukraine, both guided activities and unstructured exploration.
Harvard University graduate students with representatives of the Euro-Optimists caucus in the Verkhovna Rada, Sergii Leshchenko and Svitlana Zalishchuk.
The program was made possible by the Western NIS Enterprise Fund’s Seed Grant program. The Western NIS Enterprise Fund is a private equity fund financed by U.S. Agency for International Development that supports the political and economic development of Ukraine and Moldova. The Ukrainian Future Credit Union in Michigan and the Ukrainian-American Community Foundation Inc. provided financial support.
The goal of what has been dubbed the Ukraine Trek is to help the students gain perspective on a country in the midst of a transformation from authoritarianism to democracy. The hope is that they gain an understanding of the institutional challenges that this process seeks to surmount, the progress that has been made and the pitfalls that have arisen. As Ukraine and the region will likely remain a foreign policy challenge for the U.S. and other global actors, it is hoped that the trip will help these students become engaged and informed in their future careers.
To learn more about the Ukraine Trek and about the Group for Tomorrow’s Ukraine, readers may visit the GTU website at tomorrowsukraine.org.