On January 14th the Tea Dinner with the Japanese bandura player Charlie Sakuma Suici took place in the Kiev art-café. The event was initiated and organized by the INTERCULTURE National Committee and attracted enormous attention by the press. Sakuma-san dances Ukrainian dances and plays the bandura for 12 years. -He succeeded in studying the culture which was completely new to him, while staying Japanese in his traditions and world outlook. As an interpreter, I realize that the basis of the cognition of something “different” is the deep understanding of one’s own

nature, language, psychology, art…

Olha Gudz, the initiator and interpreter of the event

(Ukraine)

December 5th is the International Volunteer Day. On that day members of the “Volunteer in Action” project organized a concert for the geriatric nursing house residents. Some of the elderly men and women thanked us in tears for visiting them. While

gathered our stuff after the concert, an old man came in and started playing the accordion! This was a kind of gratitude and we were quite

pleased! Julia Kisulina (Ukraine)

New Year in Norway

I have got to tell you honestly that I’m completely ecstatic about this event. It wasn’t just a beautiful place, holiday, fireworks and tasty cheese with caramel. New Year in Norway is inexpressible atmosphere of closeness and openness and the simple answers for difficult questions. It was the wonderful music that I have never heard before. It is the will to understand and help – no matter which language you speak. A very important point was seeing the house made of straw blocks – an analog of the house that we are building and thanks to Sturle, we saw it. For all that time I saw one big, friendly family.

Valentin Bondarenko (Ukraine)

GIVEN OR NOT

“In every person’s life there is or has to be a creative line, the sphere of their activity which gives them the opportunity to touch the world of the beautiful! This is not the profession but the way to communicate with the subtle world.”1

Sergey Tretetsky (Ukraine)

The straw spirit ofChristmas

The most appreciated things are those that are made with your own hands together with a

friendly company.

Every one of us having our own angel was almost an incredible thing

to imagine. It seemed surprising that the real angels were smiling behind our shoulders rejoicing for the people.

Oleksa Stasevych (Ukraine) 1 Please read the article on http://www.iofc.org/ru/node/53161

“The Action for life” project’s aim is to develop the new generation of people – the people who strive for changing the world beginning from themselves. The Eastern Europe team consists of six people and their local friends. -We came to the Eastern Europe in the beginning of January – from warm India right to the cold Romanian winter. Despite the low temperature, our hearts melted with the warmth and hospitality of our friends.

Diana Damsha (Romania), Alex Birnberg (Australia)

Dates of Action for Life: 6,January-8, February Romania 9, February- 2, March Moldova 3, March - 5, April Ukraine. www.afl.iofc.org

New Year in the Recollection House in Khmelnitsky

- The inner life may be richer and intensive than the external one. The will to be saint or just good is nothing more than the egoism trap. And the realization of God in our lives (the thing every believer including me strives to) doesn’t depend on the number of good deeds and candles lit in a church, but on humility. The humility is not weakness and phlegmatic behavior but easiness and openness towards His will.

Anton Zolotarev (Ukraine)

The seventh Christmas fair took place in Simferopol, playing, singing, dancing.

It has become the most memorable event of the New Year’s Eve! For the first time ever it lasted two days filled with the performances of the numerous art collectives, lottery drawings, auctions, master-classes, dances. The point we appreciated was that the fair has been organized by the youth, the members of the “Volunteer in Action” and “Multinational Crimean Active People” projects and the Young Leaders Club of the Heidelberg Centre. During these two days, the organizers gathered the sum of about 3000UAH, half of which shall be donated to the “Yolochka” Children’s Home, and a child suffering from cancer shall get another half. Andrew Mastykin (Ukraine)

2 Christmas and New Year in Ukraine Ira Myshkina(Ukraine) and Luzian Obrist (Switzerland)

Foundations for Freedom NGO

www.f-4-f.org E-mail: info@f-4-f.org

Phone: +38 (044) 574-64-99

Editors: Emiliya Tagieva, Olha Hudz Interpreters:Nadezhda

Snezhkina, Israfil Abdullayev

2 Please read the article on www.f-4-f.org