On April 5, 2021, the team of the International Institute of Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations met with Yurii Danylyshyn, Regional Vice President of the Ukrainian World Congress, Chairman of the Prosvita Association in Argentina, Roman Danylyshyn, Director of the Ukrainian School at the Prosvita Association in Argentina, and Olga Demczuk, a representative of Argentine educators, to jointly discuss issues of professional development for educators from South America.
The Argentine community is one of the oldest. The IECDR team has been cooperating with it for a long time. Roman Danylyshyn recalls how the cooperation was born: «We have been cooperating with IECDR for many years, and it was a very interesting process for us. 8 years ago, we received Step 1 and learned that Ukraine sees emigration with different eyes. And we understood how foreigners learn the Ukrainian language. For the last 10 or 15 years Prosvita Association has understood that language is the key to penetrating Ukrainian culture».
And, indeed, without language it is impossible to fully learn about the mentality and culture of the country, so we support and help educators to teach at the appropriate level. This is not the first time the Institute conducts such courses. «Roman started to take the first steps together with IECDR, Mz. Kliuchkovska, regarding teaching of the Ukrainian language online.… The response among our community was enormous», said Yurii Danylyshyn.
It is important that Ukrainians in Latin America have a special mentality which is important to take into account during the courses. Yurii Danylyshyn aptly emphasized this: «We need to understand the Latin mind. We are not Americans, we are not Canadians, we are not Europeans. We are born and live for a long time in a different niche and system. It has its own peculiarities».
Another problem facing Ukrainians living in Argentina is the lack of an influx of new Ukrainian emigrants and, as a result, strong assimilation. This is perhaps the biggest problem among South American countries. Therefore, there is a problem of teaching a qualified educator who takes into account the peculiarities of the Spanish-speaking Ukrainian, who has preserved the model of the ancient language.
The IECDR team together with Roman and Yurii Danylyshyn discussed the need to organize a course on learning Ukrainian as a foreign language, as well as the problem of teacher upskilling. Such cooperation is important for the exchange of experience of both, foreign educators and their colleagues from Ukraine.