A half year update

As winter came and we thought that it could be a good idea to write a short update on how things developed here for the last half a year. So here it is, arranged by rough areas of Baranivka’s life:

During this half a year we made a big step forward in arranging the territory around the house according to our needs – tiding up the land and forest, taking away from the land scrap metal, installing sewage system, getting rid of old half-ruined sheds, planting veggie garden and installing a 1000 liters tank for its water supply.

Our plans for the construction were to erect walls of the house, which we didn’t manage to achieve. During the summer time we built scaffoldings around the house and installed vibration insulation at the second floor.

The major delay was caused by problems with getting doors’ and windows’ frames, which are needed to be in place to start erecting walls from straw-bales. In spite that we ordered them to a carpenter at the end of spring and were promised to get them in a month time, till now we managed to receive just part of them for the first floor.

Another thing is a financial restriction – at the moment we are fund-raising for windows (the required amount is 4000 EUR, for now we collected 1400 EUR), as it won’t be much use of the walls without windows.

Summer Volunteer programme this year hosted 73 volunteers (in comparison to 46 last year) from 15 different countries (Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, USA, Australia, Cameroon and Brazil). This year it involved a 2-week Volunteer Camp organized in partnership with Svit-Ukraine and Civil Service International, a number of volunteers from Peace Corps (a contact established last year) coming at different times and a visit of volunteers from ‘Do good, Ukraine!’ NGO as a part of their volunteer tour. The programme started on 25th of May by F4F Ukrainian National Community Building Meeting and finished off on 30th of September by 7-days course organised for volunteers and a Volunteer Conference that took place over week-end for everyone involved into developing Baranivka.

Apart of the volunteers we hosted more than 40 visitors - people who are already a part of our F4F and IofC ‘Support Network’ like Ian and Karin Parsons, Ian and Ingrid Franzons (IofC Sweeden), David Curtis (IofC UK), Claude Bourdin (Farmers Dialogue), Angela Starovoitova, Zoriana Borbulevych, Liubou Pranevych (F4F), Nigel Heywood (IofC-Australia), Bev Appleton (IofC USA, Renewal Arts). They facilitated different events and discussions among the core team, helped volunteers to find out more about IofC and F4F and revitalized the team of permanent residents just by coming and being around.

Also there were visitors of the House who explored potential partnership (ethnic village from Zaporizhia,  SvitUkraine NGO representative, eco-activists from Kharkiv, a researcher on community living form Moscow, Mayor of the Baranivka village, a journalist from the region, etc.)

Another big step forward feels to be made in teamwork and community development among the permanent residents of the House. We seem to learn to pay attention not only to work and its results, but to the team spirit and nature of our communication as well. A big role played a day-long session, facilitated by Nigel Heywood on the mission of the House and ways of its fulfillment and F4F course that helped some members of the team to understand IofC ideas and see the potential of the project better.

Our plans for the nearest future are to finish with all the preparations for the winter, complete repair of the ‘granny’s house’ (unexpected for all of us it comes to be very nice and possible to live in) and to have some rest after full-on warm season. Next stage will be evaluation of the year and planning for the next year of work.

It will be 3 members of the core team who will stay in Baranivka for the winter – Lesha Popkov, Lesha Nelup and Lena Kashkarova. And, of course, our numerous cats and a newly-joined the team dog Chupa:)))) Robert Werner and Marina Noikina have moved to Dresden and Nadia is looking for a job at the moment.

That seem to be major news. Thank you  very much for all of those who played a role in the House development!