Ukraine Youth Action Network
The Ukraine Youth Action Network is a semester-long virtual exchange program fostering collaboration between displaced Ukrainian students residing in the EU (ages 12-17) and their counterparts of the same age in the United States. The program is supported by the Stevens Initiative at the Aspen Institute with funding provided by the Bezos Family Foundation. UYAN is led by MapWorks Learning, an educational nonprofit based in the United States. Each participating school or organization will have a lead teacher or other adult to assist in supervising and guiding their students.
A series of weekly guided activities will explore identity, community, and leadership. As the program progresses, students will collaborate to design and implement projects meant to benefit Ukrainians. The program is unique because it is “asynchronous,” meaning that students can participate at their own convenience, anytime and anywhere, from any device. This makes it easy for everyone to participate, even if they have different schedules or limited language proficiency. Schedules permitting, we will also host 3-5 live Zoom sessions during the virtual exchange.
The program will be hosted on Narrative Atlas, a private and secure online platform similar to Facebook. Narrative Atlas was created by MapWorks Learning and their partner teachers to provide a comprehensive, secure set of tools to help students and teachers collaborate online in a safe and creative environment. Only students and teachers who are part of the program can access the platform. Narrative Atlas is GDPR, FERPA, and COPPA compliant.
Working with their peers to design and implement a project to help Ukraine, students will:
Teachers at partner schools and organizations will:
Our next iteration begins in January. We will also offer the program next year —during the fall semester as well as the winter/spring semester.
For more information, email: hello@mapworkslearning.