On June 13–15, the Kyiv office of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) held a training workshop with the support of the Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine (VAAD Ukraine) for the workers of the international Jewish children's summer camp “Shorashim – Roots and Future of Diaspora Jews” (Shorashim – Ukraine – 2014). The training workship is the first stage of the international Shorashim project in Ukraine. Dr. Natalia Bakulina is the head of the Shorashim project in Ukraine and the Caucasus.

The second stage of the project will be holding a pre-camp for the madrichim on July 26-28 and the camp itself for Jewish children on July 29 – August 9. The camp will be held in the Bukovina region, in the Boyany village of Chernovitskaya oblast.

The third stage will be a post-camp held to summarize the results.

An international team took part in the training workshop: the leaders of the project, the creative groups, the madrichim, and the teachers. Overall there were approximately 20 participants from Ukraine, Georgia, and Israel.

The seminar was held as a webinar over Skype.The following topics were discussed during the seminar:

• contemporary methods and types of informal Jewish education;
• working methods and content presented at the international Jewish children's summer camp “Shorashim – Roots and Future of Diaspora Jews,” as well as the main points of the program's structure;
• ways to improve the Shorashim project;
• teaching methods in developing and planning a program and working methods for the camp, including how to take into account the children's interests and their psychological and mental needs;
• ways of organizing the children in the summer camp;
• interactive methods in informal education;
• organizing work with parents;
• legal aspects of organizing the summer camp;
• responsibilities of the camp's counselors;
• lectures and workshops by experts in Jewish Studies.

The participants learned modern methods and types of Jewish informal education, discussed the main components of how the camp's program is structured, developed content for the Shorashim-2014 camp, proposed different methods and techniques for the international children's camp, learned interactive teaching methods and how to organize children in the camp, and talked about possible ways to improve the Shorashim project as well as legal and organizational matters pertaining to its realization.

Ways to consider the psychological, intellectual, and age peculiarities of children, as well as their interests, and the regional peculiarities and the current situation in Ukraine were also discussed. The participants of the seminar also worked on the particular topics to be utilized at the camps and on the methods they will be using. The educational part of the seminar was led by the director of the Shorashim camp in Ukraine Natalia Bertosh and the leader of the Shorashim project in Ukraine and the Caucasus – Dr. Natalia Bakuilna.

Lectures on the history of Ukrainian Jews were an important part of the preparatory seminar. They were focused particularly on the history of the Shoah in Ukraine and on

regional aspects of Jewish history, zoning in on the particular location of the summer camp. Dr. Ekaterina Malakhova spoke on the following topics: “Rabbis, Hasidim, educators: an introduction to the intellectual history of Ukrainian Jews” and “Boyany in the Jewish world of Eastern Europe. Who are the Boyany Hasidim?”Dr. Anatoliy Podolsky, a member of the EAJC General Council and the Director of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, spoke about the historical problems of modern Jewry and on matters pertaining to teaching the history of the Holocaust. His lecture topics were titled: “Modern History of the Jews: Key Aspects: and “History of the Shoah in Ukraine: Testimonies of Survivors and Eyewitnesses.”

The lecture and workshop materials included presentations, texts, and fragments from classical Jewish and children's literature, a bibliography (both printed and online), teaching materials and aids to help in developing the workshops that will take place at the camp, and aids in teaching the history of the Holocaust.

The sponsors and partners of the project were the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF, Great Britain), JAFI, and the Kyiv office of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.