At the
beginning of the meeting the group of Gabfest members watched the video “We
Love American English" from FB page
of American English at State and was very glad to see themselves on the screen.
Today’s session of the Gabfest Club (Window on America center, Dnipropetrovsk
/ Ukraine was dedicated to the topic “International Anti-Corruption Day”.
The
topic was rather complicated and some new terms had to be introduced. We
started with a word that was hard to translate into Ukrainian – “the
whistleblower”. The group was given
samples of the Ukrainian anti-corruption ads and was asked to explain its
message to our foreign visitors.
The
“Transparency International” organization and its objectives were introduced to
the group. The definition of the term “corruption” was explained in several
YouTube videos. The Club members were given a task: to share their stories
about corruption cases in Ukraine and suggest the remedy how to curb
corruption. The most interesting stories were about corruption in courts,
education and railway tickets sales.
The
group was urged to take corruption as a serious threat to Ukrainian society.
They were presented with the addresses of resources and organizations in
Ukraine and abroad that will help them to combat this social phenomenon.
The
second part of the session was a conversation with our foreign guests – Mr.
Paul from the UK and Mr. Manny from New-York City. They told the group about
their home towns and their experiences in Ukraine. The Ukrainians tried to
explain the cross-cultural difficulties a foreign guest may face in
Dnipropetrovsk.
Number
of participants – 31 persons.
