A summary of our project

We are raising £3,500 to enable two colleagues from Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine to take up the opportunity to come to York for a five week training course.

The travel and living costs for the trip - that we hope to cover through generous donations - are the final barrier preventing these incredibly resilient individuals from attending. Even with the awful situation in Ukraine, these colleagues are still working hard to enhance their own skills and, in turn, the educational opportunities for their students. It would be heartbreaking if they were unable to access this opportunity, especially as support for other associated costs has already been pledged by the University of York.

Any donation you are able to make would be massively appreciated, and would go a long way towards helping our Ukrainian colleagues access this training and demonstrating our community support for them.

Who are we?

We are a team of staff in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York, which is twinned with the School of Foreign Languages at Karazin Kharkiv National University (KKNU) in Ukraine, under a partnership between University of York and KKNU.

Background and details

At the request of our colleagues in Kharkiv, in Feb-May 2024 we ran an online course on Phonetics for Teaching English Pronunciation to equip them to plan and teach a brand new module on English pronunciation for Ukrainian first year undergraduate students. (You can see us at one of our weekly Zoom classes in the photo above). We've been completely amazed by our colleagues' resilience - investing in a new initiative for their students, while teaching 100% online.

As a next step, we have invited two of these colleagues from KKNU to come to York for specialist training on a Cert TESOL course, an intensive English language teacher training course, in June-July 2024.

The Department has waived the tuition fees, and the University is providing accommodation, demonstrating their support for this initiative.

However, the costs remaining for travel and living expenses while in York are still proving too high. With this project, we are optimistic that the community of York staff, alumni, and friends can show our support and together help remove this final barrier to their participation.

Where will the money go?

• The project minimum will allow us to cover basic travel costs, but if we hit the project target we can also cover living costs during the five week course.
• If we exceed our maximum target amount and/or have funds left over after all costs are covered, the balance will be transferred to the York Sanctuary Fund, which helps students and academics displaced by conflict.
• Breakdown of costs (total for two people): Travel to York £1000; Visa fees and health insurance £500; Living costs for 5-6 week stay in the UK £2000.

Follow our progress

We will provide regular updates on progress with the campaign, but in the meantime you can follow progress via the Department of Language and Linguistic Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Help us succeed!

• You don't need to give money to help us succeed! You can help by sharing this project with anyone you think would support us – via social media, email or old-fashioned word of mouth.
• And although we said you don't need to give money to help us, we'd love it if you did: please donate and help make this trip happen for our dear colleagues from KKNU!