Solutions from Ukraine: Preserve Your Identity project to empower youth in discovering their genealogy
Photo: Project Coordinator Olha Moroz
Ukraine is implementing the Preserve Your Identity project, which aims to help young people study their genealogy.
Project coordinator Olha Moroz reported this in a comment to Ukrinform.
What is the solution?
The Ukrainian Antiquity NGO developed the project in cooperation with USAID and Pact in Ukraine.
"The idea of creating a free video course that would teach young people to search for their genealogy arose in the team of the Ukrainian Antiquity NGO a long time ago. We have developed a free video course that will help you research your family history and a test at the end of the course, after which project participants receive certificates," Moroz noted.
Photo: Preserve Your Identity Project
How does it work?
The Preserve Your Identity project includes two parts:
- The initial aspect involves collaborating with teachers and utilizing youth spaces to organize targeted events.
Photo: Project Coordinator Olha Moroz
The second is a video course consisting of 9 topics, each of which is dedicated to a separate element of family history research:
- Family history – why do we need it?
- Where to start researching or the first steps towards ancestors.
- How to "talk" to documents: exploring family archives and photographs.
- Is it possible to find something without leaving the room? Let's work online.
- What names did they have, how long did they live, and what did they die of: what documents "speak" and "are silent about"?
- "Choosing faith" or how to find nationality.
- Family memory, forgetting and reconstruction: how to talk to relatives about skeletons in the family closet?
- Preserving heritage online: where and why? Visual design of the family tree. Cybersecurity tips.
- From family legend to the history of Ukraine: our family in a historical context.
Photo: Project Coordinator Olha Moroz
The course offers a balanced combination of theory and practice. The video is complemented by visualizations created to help students better understand and assimilate information. Tests available after the lecture material allow students to assess their level of assimilation.
The course will be permanently available online, allowing anyone interested to study family history.
The project is aimed at young people aged 14 to 35 and Ukrainians living abroad. Participants from Poland and Luxembourg have already joined the initiative.
One of the essential elements of the project is the digitization of family archives.
"After all, we are talking not only about photographs but also letters, Christmas tree decorations, embroidered shirts, scarves, and other valuable research-related things. We want Ukrainians to search for their genealogy and digitize and preserve their archives. In addition, we collect stories of researching their genealogy," Moroz added.
According to the project coordinator, there were cases when participants researched up to 6-7 generations of their ancestors, and some even found information about 14 generations.
For reference:
It should be noted that the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and the Eastern Europe Foundation created and launched the online course "United Ukraine: Formation of National Identity."
