KYIV – There was no shortage of role models who stood before several dozen teenage girls during a five-hour leadership workshop in the U.S. government-run America House on October 16.
They were all successful and accomplished women who came to offer advice and guidance, share experience and facilitate brief leadership exercises.
Organized jointly by Fulbright Ukraine and the Kyiv Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International (CSCI), the event gathered some three dozen aspiring leaders age 14-16.
Its purpose was to emulate a week-long annual summit that Chicago hosts for its 28 sister cities, including Kyiv, but condensed into a one-day event. The reason: Kyiv this year submitted the most applications (41) for the single slot that is allotted to each partner city, all of which “were so amazing,” said Leroy Allala, executive director of Chicago Sister Cities International.
“We hope to do future satellite events like this again and this isn’t my last visit to Ukraine,” he said, adding that 46,000 Ukrainians reside in the Chicago metropolitan area “not counting second- and third-generation Ukrainians.”
Thus, the one-day leadership workshop was meant to show that each applicant is worthy of the program and that “there are no losers here,” said Vera Eliashevsky, co-chair of the CSCI Kyiv Committee.
Addressing the young crowd, the former Fortune 500 company executive told them that “you are inspiration to make this happen, …you’re [future] stupendous leaders with ambitions, dreams and goals for the future.”
Master of ceremonies Marta Kolomayets, a native Chicagoan who heads the U.S.-funded Fulbright Ukraine educational and cultural exchange program, delivered the first message: “We’re all active and we want to change things.”
U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch holds a T-shirt that was presented to her by Leroy Allalla, executive director of Chicago Sister Cities International, and Vera Eliashevsky, the co-chair of the Kyiv Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International, at the America House in Kyiv on October 16.
Motria Melnyk, a 2007 BridgeBuilder honoree as a teacher and education chair of the CSCI Kyiv committee, praised the group for sending in the most and best quality applications for the organization’s Global Youth Ambassadors Leadership summit.
“You showed risk in your belief that you could make change in your community, country and the world,” the educator said.
A surprise guest was former First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko, a Chicago native who has spent more than half her life in Ukraine.
She advised the group to “make plans, but take the opportunities that arise because you don’t know where they’re going to take you.” Afterwards, Ms. Yushchenko delivered the first workshop centered on key leadership attributes.
Also present was U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. She assured the group that they could do anything they want, whether “going to the moon, becoming a CEO or an ambassador like me, and I never thought I would become one.”
Relating to the young women present who were not selected in the highly competitive field for the leadership summit in Chicago that brings together teens from that city and its sister cities, Ms. Yovanovitch mentioned how she also didn’t pass her first test to enter the diplomatic corps.
Her message was that anything “is possible… if you battle through adversity… I passed the test after my second try because I found a way. Women in Ukraine have kept and preserved the culture, language and traditions, so you’ve inherited this leadership role.”
Focusing on gender inequality in Ukrainian politics and business was Marta Farion, president of the Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation of America and former chair of the CSCI Kyiv committee.
Also a native Chicagoan and well-known attorney, she stated that the majority of the nation’s higher educational student body comprises women, “but if you look at who the CEOs are, Parliament and government… that’s not the case.”
Indeed, only four of the 24 Ukrainian Cabinet members are women. Propor-tionately, even fewer are in Parliament with 12.5 percent being female.
“Be prepared for competition, …learn to be assertive,” Ms. Farion said. Different standards apply to men and women, she added. “Men are admired for being ambitious and having goals, but if a woman is, well, she’s a bitch,” Ms. Farion said.
To address gender inequality, Ms. Eliashevsky, the current CSCI Kyiv committee chair, said that a program will be developed in the near future for this purpose.
Towards the event’s end, Ukraine’s acting Health Minister Dr. Ulana Suprun joined the group. She said people “expect so much from… the participating girls – our future depends on this rising generation.”
Her advice to them? “Never be afraid of taking responsibility or making choices, be ready to face your own fears to defeat them, and stick to your principles, [and] do not compromise your values. For they define you,” she said.