MTÜ Ukraina Kultuurikeskus

description of organisation

To get information about service possibilities in Ukrainian Cultural Center, please contact their coordinating organisatsioon NGO EstYes on evs@estyes.ee or www.estyes.ee

The Ukrainian Cultural Center is a non-denominational organization open to people of all faiths. Our Center is located side by side with Tallinn’s Ukrainian Catholic Church and Tallinn Paper Mill. Those of us who work at the Ukrainian Cultural Center are dedicated to promoting Ukrainian Culture in Estonia. We provide a place where local Ukrainians can preserve their language, culture, and traditions. The Center also makes it possible for Estonians and people of other nationalities to learn more about the Ukrainian way of life. The organisation serves as both a community center and a Sunday School for the Ukrainian Catholic parish in Estonia.
Since protecting ancient traditions and disappearing techniques is one of our main aims, we regularly organize workshops and courses that teach a number of different medieval arts and crafts. Our courses and workshops are usually organized for children and adult, so everyone who are interested in. They include papermaking, calligraphy, bookmaking, ceramics, weaving, icon painting and traditional woodwork. Sunday School for children is held every Saturday morning. We also constantly organize Ukrainian ethnographic exhibits and participate every year actively in the Old Town Days, a medieval family festival in Tallinn. It’s hard to describe all our activities at once, for many of them are flexible, and we are permanently searching for ways of extending this list.

During their Service, the EVS volunteers will have a chance to participate in all activities of our centre. In other words, they are going to have unique opportunities of studying old techniques, medieval arts and crafts, including papermaking, calligraphy, book art, ceramics, weaving, icon painting and traditional woodwork. They can also be involved in various renovation works in our carpentry workshop or in designing the herbal garden on the grounds of the center. Apart from this, we expect our volunteers to participate in different cultural events organized by our center. They can also take part in concerts and exhibitions, and get practical as well as theoretical knowledge about art history.

There are many activities, which volunteers can be involved in. We have launched a large-scale project called the Scriptorium. The project is based on the idea that knowledge and talents of every human being are unique and important. By creating a place for keeping this knowledge, we save it from disappearing. The Scriptorium was created exactly for such purpose. People can come here to write letters to be stored at our church or write stories that are in some ways significant for them. These letters and stories are written on handmade paper made at our own papermaking workshop. Volunteers can contribute to this project by helping us make paper and ink.
Volunteer will maintain the knowledge of handicraft paper making also during the project of Poetics Book for Endangered Species and Cultures. During that project, volunteer will meet different people from various cultures, who visit our place regularly.
Ukrainian Cultural Center maintains collections of nation items, which need complete organaizing and structuring. We will give an opportunity to consultate with professional restorers and museum workers. We have good connections with Estonian Open Air Museum, Tallinn City Museum and Estonian Museum of Art(KUMU). During that project, the volunteer will have an opportunity to communicate with representatives of Estonian culture.
Volunteers can also find themselves interested in creating Tallinn’s Noah’s Ark, which is a unique project aimed at preserving and protecting the world´s endangered species. The project is based on the idea of collecting pairs of unique toy animals, hand-crafted in traditional folk techniques. Volunteers can contribute to the Noah´s Arc project by producing traditional toys from their own culture. This way they can also help to promote the idea of protecting nature and form an environmentally friendly outlook on life. One of the activities for volunteers would be introducing the Noah´s Ark project in Grusbeke tower and leading the excursions in the rooms of Ukrainian Cultural Center.
Volunteers will also be welcomed to participate in Sunday School for children, which take place every Saturday. There are various activities taking place in our Center every day and volunteers will be welcomed to join them all. They will also have opportunity to meet many different people, who come here everyday, among them artists, journalists, people interested in art, history and culture. These all can provide volunteers not only new learning opportunities, but also a great intercultural experience.
We will also offer opportunities to do workshops in Museum of Narva and Leisi School in Saaremaa.
Volunteers will have the opportunity to rent a small room for a reasonable price, which will be located on the grounds of the Center. This will help them participate in the daily life of the center and give the chance to truly immerse into the cultural and artistic atmosphere.
The working hours for the volunteer would be 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. We are certain that we can offer a continuous and interesting job and communication with different representatives from different cultures.
Volunteer will have the opportunity to practice Estonian and English.