Training in Kremenchuk

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted last -- or that I've been in Ukraine for a month now. Time has a way of slipping away, as if we all didn't know that.

Here's how I spent the past week:

Early in the week, we met with a group of journalists who wanted to practice their English -- a good opportunity to talk about news values and the state of journalism in Ukraine. Our "English club" meets again on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we met with a group of university students who want to start an independent student newspaper. This Wednesday, we'll go to the university for another meeting -- and roll up our sleeves and get started.

On Thursday, we returned to Boiko School to work with teenagers who want to launch a school paper. We settled on a name (Boiko's Eyes -- which sounds even better in Russian); a logo; and a format (bilingual -- Russian and English). We also assigned several stories, which we hope the students will deliver this week.

After the meeting at Boiko, Selma and I dashed to the train station and caught a van (called a marshrutka) to Kremenchuk, a pleasant city (pop. 230,000) between Kharkiv and Kyiv. We checked into a nice little hotel and then, on Friday and Saturday, conducted a workshop on civic journalism for a group of reporters and editors. [Here's a photo-of-the-day Web site for Kremenchuk, which features a three-minute video about the town.]

I'll post more about the workshop later. For the time being, here are a few photos: