FUSF Delegation Visits Kyiv

Professor Robert Brown, Peter Kormylo, Donald Urquhart and his wife Senia travelled to Kyiv earlier this month to undertake business on behalf of the Foundation. On Thursday 8th November, Professor Brown and Peter met Vladyslav Mylenkyi, Deputy Minister of Family Youth and Sports with a view to developing educational links between Ukraine and Scotland, which follows on from earlier work that Peter Kormylo commenced. Later Robert and Peter met with Nadezhda Tatarchuk, Head of the Department of Child Protection to consider a transfer of expertise in the field of Child Protection.

In the afternoon, Robert, Peter, Donald and Senia met with Oleksandr Tsvietkov, previous Consul General in Edinburgh and now working in the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Tsvietkov was meeting up with contacts that he had established during his time in Edinburgh and confirmed his wish to assist the Foundation with the projects it is pursuing in Ukraine. In attendance at this meeting was Olga Taukach , Editor of Ukraine Foreign Affairs magazine, who was keen to include a feature on the work of the Foundation in the magazine as well as a feature on Edinburgh. Donald also met with Alice Vannikova, a lawyer and a member of the Ukrainian Metropolitan Bar Association to discuss the development of contacts with the Scottish Legal and Judicial profession with a view to undertaking a visit of a delegation of Ukrainian Lawyers to Scotland.

On Thursday evening, the delegation were guests of Martin Harris, Deputy Chief of the British Embassy in Kyiv, and his wife for dinner. Mr Harris is a firm supporter of the Foundation and expressed his keenness to assist the Foundation with the various projects it was undertaking. Mr and Mrs Harris and their family also took the opportunity to join the Foundation as family members.

On the Friday morning, the delegation met with a number of senior Kyiv City Administration officials, including the Deputy Mayor, Sergei Rudyk. Mr Rudyk chaired the meeting and thanked Professor Brown for his work at the Orphanage at Vorzel. He expressed a wish to push ahead with proposed Scottish Avenue of Trees in Kyiv and further discussions took place in relation to proposed cultural and administrative projects.

During the afternoon, the Foundation's delegation met representatives of its sister organisation, the Friends of Scotland. Mr Danylo Kurdelchuk and colleagues from the Ukrainian Bar and Judiciary who are associated with the Friends of Scotland, have agreed to develop closer links between the two organisations and plans are in hand to meet early in the New Year to further these links.

The delegation also met with Stuart McKenzie, an expatriate Scot who runs a marketing and events business in Kyiv and has organised a very successful charity Burns Night in Kyiv in the last few years. Stuart was keen to support the work of the Foundation and there may be a possibility of the Foundation working with him in Kyiv to organise an event along similar lines to raise the profile of the Foundation in Ukraine.

With a number of other meetings taking place over the weekend, the trip was extremely successful and reflected well on the promising start the Foundation has made to its work across in Ukraine.

Donald Urquhart, Secretary