READERS SOUND  OFF

"Our children are capable not only of non-standard thinking but of such deeds as well," Liubov Rusalkina, a journalist and teacher from Kherson, is convinced.

The annauncement of The Day's children's essay contest on What I Would Change In Ukraine announced had great resonance. Children, teenagers, and 1st year students from universities and institutes from throughout Ukraine write us. Whole classes, schools and groups write... This week as well Kherson Regional Youth Social Services Center Director Liubov Rusalkina who came to Kyiv on business brought to our office a batch of essays written by students in Kherson Schools No. 15 and 30. It seems that Ms. Rusalkina's first profession was journalism, and she not only works in the center but also teaches in the regional lyceum of journalism, business, and jurisprudence. Her program, Think, Speak, Act, has incorporated basic principles of sociology, journalism, and psychology. It is meant for the new generation that wants and can be well informed and socially involved. The program has been successfully operating for four years, and its tangible results are repeated victories by the lyceum students at national festivals and contests as Perlyny Sezonu [Pearls of the Season] and Slavutych (a young journalists' competition). Lyceum graduates successfully enter and study in various institutes in our country. Incidentally, The Day's correspondent in Lviv Alina Semeriakova is also a pupil of Ms. Rusalkina.

Every year in Kherson young journalists' competitions and even Zhurliandia [Journalistland] carnivals are held, and up to 150 children reach the finals. The students of the lyceum and two affiliated schools, No. 15 and No. 30, regularly participate in regional radio and television broadcasting, their articles are published in Kherson newspapers, they shoot films at the young people's Totem studio. The students are also taught the principles of public relations.

Young people, united by the lyceum and the Social Services Center, work as volunteers in hospitals, clinics, and children's homes. A great deal of the Center's activities concern help not only to poor and destitute people but also to gifted children. Ms. Rusalkina is convinced, "They too, need support. Oversensitive and susceptible, they need help and normal socialization, so we teach such children to adapt themselves to society and psychological self-defense."

Liudmyla Rusalkina as the center's director is also planning to organize touring schools for talented rural children. And all this is under conditions of chronic delay of payments to both lyceum and center employees. When asked how the program manages to survive, Ms. Rusalkina said, "It's hard. But the children and our work give us immense pleasure. To finance our numerous projects we seek and find sponsors as well as take part in various grant competitions." The center has already gathered a circle of people willing to contribute their efforts and means to raising Ukraine's new generation.

"A person that cannot get and use information is just stupid," Ms. Rusalkina says. "The worst thing is his soul cannot develop, and this could foster actions unacceptable to society. Our children are capable of non-standard thinking, they can write and understand the world and the people around them. We teach them to think positively, to be ready to act, to actively participate in changing our life. Our graduates quickly find their place, they know the principles of management, and everywhere they become little centers of new thinking."

Today we publish what we consider the best essays of The Day's friends from Kherson. Ms. Rusalkina says that our newspaper is especially popular among young people of Kherson as something that can be not just read but thought about.

NOT TO CHANGE BUT BUILD

For me Ukraine is my country. And above all it is my family, my school, my teachers, and friends. I love my family, my teachers are good, and I can tolerate my friends' practical jokes. Regardless of grown-ups' hard life I feel their love and care, and I would not change anything here. I think Ukraine needs not changes but good and useful actions. And it can be done only if one is backed by friendship, friends' and relatives' help and understanding. And, perhaps, when we all become one family we will stop changing things and start building. For ourselves, and for the country. That is why I think that perhaps we should change something in every one of us. Perhaps we should try to be closer and nicer to one another.
By Oleksandr KOSTYK, 11 years old, Kherson
 

THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY OUT!

We should put an aim for ourselves: to contribute all our efforts to Ukraine's development. The process is like a snail's movement upstairs, where the snail is Ukraine and the staircase is the path of development. To reach the top we must walk every step, doing so with great care, for every misstep means a quick fall.

As we know, at the beginning of twentieth century Ukraine was an agricultural-industrial state, while now industry is one of our priorities and agriculture is suffering substantial losses. And all this is happening here, in Ukraine, a country in a favorable geographical position, rich in the most fertile black soils that never lack moisture. How could it happen? Because old methods of management and obsolete technologies are used, low-grade seeds are sown, financing is inadequate, and agricultural resources are undeveloped.

Unfortunately, industry is in no better position: many big factories and plants come to a halt because of the crisis (for example, Petrovsky Combine Plant and the giant shipbuilding factory in Kherson), and this is a heavy load for Ukraine's economy. According to the figures of 1991, our workforce is 25,000,000, and most work in industrial structures. Closing enterprises causes unemployment, when thousands of jobless people are ready to commit crimes to earn their meals. Do we need this?
By Svitlana PRUDYUS, ninth grade, Kherson

POWER IS A PROFITABLE BUSINESS

More and more often I hear in conversation the phrase, "The state robs people, so why can't I steal from it?" You can answer the question as you like. What can we expect of the state if it consists of such small and selfish egos? And it is needless to talk of our government: buildings, dachas, money, apartments, and Lasarenkos. Our government is a clear example of the nation's spiritual impoverishment. I am no patriot, but I feel ashamed.

People have always wanted and will want power. Power provides money. It is the most profitable business in our country, and no one cares how the nation (that is, we) lives. The only thing that matters is a timely sweet smile, campaign shows, and to keep all the skeletons in the closet well locked.
By Svitlana SAMOILENKO, Kherson

INDEPENDENCE SHOULD BE USED PROPERLY

Ukraine has long awaited independence and finally got it. But the problem is, we have not learned how to use independence properly. We need time. I do believe that Ukraine will rise and be strong. And we will see gleams of hope in the eyes of our friends and relatives.
By Yuliya BADZIAN, ninth grade, Kherson

By Natalia LIHACHOVA, The Day