THE NEW YEAR AND CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION MEETINGS
“Christ is born!”, “Let us glorify Him!”
In compliance with the quarantine requirements, the New Year and Christmas celebration meetings for various age groups of students were held in the premises of the Center in December 2020 and January 2021. “Christ is born!”, “Let us glorify Him!” We’ve remembered and told each other the Christmas story in poems, songs and plays. High school students tried themselves in the role of hosts of the holiday, and preschoolers and elementary schoolchildren reacted with enthusiasm to unexpected theatrical scenes from the Center’s team. At the end of the holiday meetings, all students received gifts.
We truly thank all those who pray and support our ministry! You are helping our team share the Good News of the Savior Jesus Christ with children and adults!
“Christ is born!”, “Let us glorify Him!”
THE “CAREER DIRECT” VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE PROGRAM
For several years, the “Career Direct” vocational guidance program has been a great tool for the Success Center team in helping teens and adults choose an educational institution or professional environment for further growth.
Twenty high school students, who come to our Center, took the Career Direct Test online on the website, where each participant answered more than 500 questions in four sections: “Personal Characteristics”, “Interests”, “Skills and Abilities” and ” Values”.
On November 12, 2020, the Center hosted a consultation for these adolescents. At the meeting, the certified consultants of the program presented to the participants their vocational guidance test results, which is 38 page long personal report. It explains in detail the important aspects of the test results. Adolescents actively participated in the tasks while working on their reports and were excited about the results. Each participant gained needed skills to work with the results and was able to compare their personal portrait of professional qualities with the Letter of Evaluation of the chosen profession.
We are grateful to God for the opportunity to help teenagers choose the appropriate occupation and prepare well for professional life.
More information about CareerDirect program you can learn on our website following the link: https://center-uspikh.com.ua/en/vocation-guidance/
PUBLIC SCHOOL LESSONS
On November 5, 2020, the teachers of the Center “Success” at the invitation of the leadership of the one of the local schools of Ternopil in compliance with the requirements of quarantine conducted a series of classes for 40 students from 8th and 9th grades on the topic of “Personality. Creativity. Success”. Lessons were held as part of the Week of socio-psychological adaptation of adolescents to independent living.
In an interactive form, we looked at the connection between a one’s personal characteristics, positive and negative traits of his or her character and achieving real success, as a person’s approach to its maximum potential in various spheres of life.
The students enthusiastically accepted that the character and personal success is formed by the following principle: “You sow thought, you reap action. You sow action, you reap habit. Our habits shape our character. And a person’s character determines what his whole life will be like.”
At the end of each lesson, we identified several creative ways to build a strong character as the foundation of a successful life.
Taking into account the positive feedback from students and class teachers, we agreed with the school management on further cooperation and conducting lessons and trainings for high school students.
We are grateful to God for the opportunity to positively influence the teenagers of our city.
Thank you all for your support and prayers in our common ministry!
For the past 12 years, the Success Christian Training Center has held seminars each year on the Biblical Entrepreneurship program, which was developed and written by the Nehemiah Project International Ministries. You can learn more about the program at the link: https://center-uspikh.com.ua/en/main/business-by-the-bible/
Every year, the Nehemiah Project organizes an annual international conference in which the team of the Success Center takes an active part. Our center is the longest international partner of the Nehemiah Project. This year is no exception. Ivan Papish will take part as a speaker at one of the seminars at such a conference. This year, this event will take place through zoom, due to the epidemic of Kovid-19.
Ivan Papish will speak on the topic: “The importance connection and community”
You can learn more about the conference at this link: https://nehemiahecommunity.com/nehemiah-week-2020/
THE SCHOOL YEAR AT THE SUCCESS CENTER IS OVER!
We truly thank all the students, parents and caregivers for their active participation in the creative and interesting educational process! Our teachers did their best and implemented creative ideas to make learning exciting every time. Parents and caregivers did their best in helping children with home distance learning. And the students were extremely responsible and diligent! We have something to celebrate!
Therefore, from the first days of June, in compliance with all the requirements of quarantine, the Center held solemn meetings with students, which summed up the training. Each student received a wonderful gift, and the most diligent were able to buy a variety of other benefits for the “dollars” they received from teachers during training.
Here are some of the feedback from children and adults:
“For me, distance learning was a push to learn English better, and the Success Center helped a lot. Thanks to online lessons, it was possible to communicate with teachers and friends and dissipate a little from thoughts about quarantine. I was looking forward to these lessons, because here I received not only knowledge, but also the joy of communicating with people I had not seen for a long time. The lessons from The Greatest Journey were very creative, and the homework did not let you get bored during the isolation. In general, the Success Center made my quarantine much more interesting and distance learning more fun, and I want to thank all the teachers and people who helped organize all this.”
Yurik Diana, 8th grade
“Thank you that we continued to study in quarantine. I tried to join all the lessons, because the tasks were really interesting and the level of the book was a bit more difficult?. I had to perform all the homeowrks in time, although before I would often forgot about them. I like the Success Center, for an interesting form of education, parties, original games and gifts???” – Prohira Katerina, 10th grade
“Glory to Jesus Christ! We truly thank all your team for training, education, attention and gifts for my children. Thank God and you for our success.” – Gleza Alina, mother of two students of the Center
“Thank you for this school year spent together 🙂 It’s really interesting to study and just communicate with you, you have a great team and great teachers 🙂 It’s always nice to be in your team. Thank you for your ideas about various competitions, holidays, quizzes, etc., it is very memorable 🙂 God bless you! ” – Shimkiv Sofia, 10th grade
“I want to thank you for all the distance lessons you have had! I really liked that, despite the quarantine, you kept in touch and always explained new material to us. I noticed that my English level improved even during quarantine. And I want to thank you for for the opportunity to study at Success Center, because there I found many new friends and met you. I like the fact that I can always feel kindness and sincerity from teachers! Thank you very much! ” – Stadnik Diana, 8th grade
We are convinced that the knowledge and emotions that each child filled their mind and heart during the 2019-2020 school year bring great results in their personal development and service to others. We wish everyone God’s abundant blessings!
REMOTE TRAINING DURING THE QUARANTINE
Since March 16 to April 2020, the activities of the Success Center team were carried out remotely. We hold online meetings for children and adolescents: English lessons, “Life skills for youth”, “The Greatest Journey”, Superbook meetings, “Successful Youth” club. For this purpose we use the following web applications: Messenger, Viber, Zoom, Google Classroom, Padlet and others.
Teachers of the Ternopil Training Center record video lessons, after watching children complete creative homework. Although living communication will not replace anything, we do not want to lose our relationships with our students.
Back in March, we started classes with older groups, kids responded willingly and actively joined online classes.
No one thought that quarantine would be so long and we will miss our younger students. So we decided to try online lessons with them as well. And we succeeded! Parents helped children to join and now we have classes with younger students.
Children’s emotions went over the top when they saw each other on the screen. Someone noticed the external changes, someone was just glad that at least remotely, but could meet friends.
Probably, for the first time, we, as teachers, were not distracted by the noise made by children – that noise simply testified to the life, communication and togetherness that is so lacking now. The parents were also thankful for the opportunity to study remotely.
To co-ordinate our work, an online team meeting is held daily, sharing news and plans for our ministry to children and adolescents, praying for the needs of our team, our children, the country, Orphan’s Promise International Ministry.
In this way, we continue to maintain good relationships with our students, giving them attention and care, and giving God’s love and peace in this difficult situation for the whole world.
We thank God that He opens different ways of working and serving even in time of quarantine!
“LIFE AT THE CROSSROADS”
On February 18, 2020, a seminar according to the “Life at the Crossroads” curriculum for teachers of public schools was held in Ternopil. The speakers of the seminar were Vitaliy Ozerny and other representatives of NGO “Youth at the Crossroads”. Employees of the Success Center participated in the seminar and received certificates which grands them right to teach this training program in the secondary schools of Ukraine.
On February 19, 2020, the teachers of the Center together with the representatives of NGO “Youth at a Crossroads” participated in three lessons for high school students at the Ternopil Collegiate School named after Joseph Slipy. The lessons were taught according to the Life at the Crossroads program. Teens actively discussed the topics of the lessons, were open to the challenge of forming a character according to Christian values, taking the character of Jesus Christ, listening to, and openly embracing the Good News.
A LESSON ON THE TOPIC OF “PREPARING FOR FAMILY LIFE”
On February 20, 2020, in order to draw attention to the problems that can arise with in the educating a family, the Department of Family and Youth of the Ternopil Regional Administration together with the team of the Center “Success” and NGO “Family on the Rock” organized and conducted a lesson on the topic of “Preparing for family life” for students of 11th grade at school № 24. The purpose of the conversation was to familiarize teenagers with the essence and necessary preconditions of a strong family, as well as how to establish and maintain a positive atmosphere of relationships, and most importantly, how to preserve and to increase love – which is the most magical feeling that is underlying family relationships.
THE «BRAINSTORM» INTELLECTUAL GAME
On February 17, 2020, a unique event – the Brainstorm Intellectual Game – took place for the first time in the city of Ternopil for students from the 16 high schools.
The children had the opportunity to answer various intellectual questions and compete for prizes. All participants received many positive emotions and remained grateful for a wonderful time.
The event was organized by the Ternopil Training Center “Success” together with the “Nasnaga” City Student Parliament and the Center for Child and Youth Development. This isn’t the first event which we’ve organized together.
We are grateful to God for this opportunity, together with other organizations, positively influence the lives of the young people of our city and to help them in comprehensive development.