But for a Fellow Countrywoman, We Wouldn’t Have a Computer
Larysa Ivshyna (Zhalovaha) says she has long wanted to offer some help to her old school which still evokes so many pleasant memories, “Our school was famous for having superb teachers...” Later, absorbed in reminiscences after the computer class had opened, she recalled... being reluctant to go to the first grade. When her first teacher Pavlina Aksenova asked whether the young girl was going to school, the future overachiever and gold medal winner answered, no. “For some reason, I recalled exactly then the words of my grandmother, ‘When you, my little one, go to school, they will put a yoke on you — forever.’” In her first schooldays she kept waiting for that yoke, but instead, as she confessed to the current teachers, she received such support, such empowerment, that she felt as if she had grown wings. For this reason she has always wanted her old school graduates also to grow wings. The current school principal Anatoly Pyrih called the event God’s gift. The point is that Lokachi, no longer a village but not yet a town, has been covered by none of the existing computerization programs. This is the destiny of all village and small-town schools. Yet, there are no rules without an exception. In this case, the exception was the good will of State Committee for Telecommunications and Informatization executives who heeded the plea of the Lokachi-born Larysa Ivshyna. According to committee deputy chairman Volodymyr Koliadenko, they invest their profits not only in the modernization of their own production facilities but also in long-term programs, such as school computerization. The committee has already opened 107 computer classes in Ukraine this year. But the equipment now installed at the Lokachi school is almost unrivaled not only in the Volyn region, for it comprises six state-of-the-art Pentium computers, a scanner, modem, laser printer, and copying machine donated by the Volyn branch of Ukrposhta (postal service). It also includes free Internet access and service discounts during an adaptation period by the Volyn branch of Ukrtelekom represented at the ceremony by Volodymyr Koshlaty. Ukrtelekom presented 100 phone cards, that is, the opportunity to get in touch with and show themselves to the outside world. Ms. Ivshyna recalled seeing a group of ordinary Lviv school pupils at an international airport. They were coming back from an international festival in Taiwan that they attended thanks to the Internet: they read an advertisement, sent an application, and thus spent a few splendid weeks on the exotic island.
“When UNESCO analyzed the level of computer and information program literacy among the pupils of 187 countries, it ranked Ukraine sixth (after Russia). Ukrainian schoolchildren do well at international contests. After one of these, held in Germany, local newspapers carried banner headlines, such as, Ukraine Investing in the Future,” the telecommunications committee representative told the young Lokachi residents, assessing their prospects.
Everybody felt joy, including those whose task is to help small Volyn town pupils drop their provincialism, for this is a state of mind rather than a geographical notion, and those who quite recently taught the pupils to swim in the computer pool without the water of computers, the teachers of information science. Also glad were the children themselves, glued to the computers that helped them peer into the outside world. Lokachi dwellers gave the guests a heartfelt welcome. The small, concise, and cordial function in the school assembly hall more than once brought tears to the eyes. Beautiful songs were sung about the native village, the maternal home, and the paternal well that you so often dream of. The Kyiv guests wished the teachers to have talented pupils and the pupils to enjoy a love that no years or distances will allow to perish — the love of friends, teachers, and simply compatriots.
