Back in Northumberland!

Well, after being up for 20 hours on Sunday, travelling for 18 and a few days to refresh, I can gladly say I feel as fresh as a daisy and have had plenty time to reflect on my time in Ukraine.

I can honestly say it feels like an age since we have been there and I can't believe it has only been a few days. We have done so much and met so many people it would take me a long time to get across just how truly amazing it was and how successful it was. Personally, I thought that we all connected really well as a group and worked well together as part of a team, especially in terms of translation! :') Now after leaving, I have many new friends from not only from Ukraine, Belaraus and Moldova, but also from England as well who I may never have met if it wasn't for this trip.

Together, we discussed all the positives and negative of each others YMCA's and got a good understanding of the programmes and activities we each do for our young people. I also got my eyes opened to both the similarities and differences we all have between our YMCA's in terms of the programmes we run, the staffing and the facilities we can offer. In hearing this, I took away with me a new perspective and some wonderful ideas in what we can do in the future.

Alongside that, we also visited some wonderful places and met some very welcoming locals and Mayors who taught us a great deal about the history of the local towns, what problems they face and how they work together with the YMCA to try and help overcome these. I saw that nowadays the YMCA is very highly thought of and well respected within Ukraine and that people go out of their way to help and I found this incredibly inspiring. Not only that, but they do it all themselves with sometimes not even a building and very little support from the government which i really admire because we get more support from the government and councils and we still have our struggles so the fact they manage by working together and practically unsupported, hats off my friends, truly! :)

As I said, I could keep going all day but i don't want to bore you all! But I have manage to get the main points across I wanted. I really enjoyed my time there and found it extremely interesting, eye opening and inspiring and would like to say a huge thank to everybody and all the people who made this trip happen and a massive success, well done guys!

All that is left to say is, I wish you all the best, will miss you all so much and I cannot wait until we meet again in the near future!
Until next time my friends :D