More information about GLW at http://www.girlguiding-glw.org.uk/

The links between AUG and GLW mean friends, joy and happiness, growth and development. We highly appreciate the support from GLW which we met every time we needed it.

Our cooperation started in 1998 when the group of Girl-Guides from Odessa went to England to take part in the international camp in Heyswood, where the leader of Odessa girl-guides, Irina Kozhevanova, met the leaders from Greater London West and invited English guides to visit Ukraine. The next year there was a trip of Greater London West leaders to Kiev and Odessa to see how our country looks like and to plan the visit of a group of rangers and young leaders to Odessa.

In July 2000 the group of UK Guides visited Odessa. Liz, Chris, Charlotte, Marion and Dorothy, and the girls arrived to Kiev and went to Odessa by train. They have spent a week in Odessa during which visited a lot of historical places and met a lot of different people. That was a very special and important time, full of adventures and fun.

For the weekend Ukrainian guides from other cities joined the group, we were making new friends both with Ukrainian and English Guides. Some girls are pen-friends since 2000. And it is important that the meeting took place in Odessa, as the Guide organisation in this city is still one of the strongest in AUG.

In 2001 the members of AUG were invited to the UK – and this visit became a part of history of AUG, as the National Board and the most active girls and leaders participated in it. For the most of the group it was a miracle – first time being abroad, in the country where Guiding started from, meeting girls and women who are active Guides, seeing lots of Guides activities, living with the English family, visiting famous historical sites.

Since then our organisation  often found support from the Guides of Greater London West.

In 2002 we got the assistance in carrying out the series of local trainings for Guide leaders. And also very important for us was the assistance for arranging the National Conference of AUG, where lots of important discussions took place and the strategic decisions were taken. And Ukrainian Guides from all the Ukraine could meet Liz Smith, who was the honorary guest of the National Conference.

In 2003 Liz Smith came to Ukraine as a trainer and representative of the European Regional Trainers' Pool to carry out the training for the National Board of AUG as a part of development programme. It was a pleasure to work with Liz as she new us and the situation inside AUG. We appreciated her observations and remarks, new information and new ideas. The special thing was that Liz could visit the Guide camp and the Leaders' training, where Ukrainian Guides talked to her and asked questions about Guiding in England.

In 2007 a group from the GLW visited Ukraine again with the aim to participate in the camp activities in Chernivtsi region. The camp programme included communication with Ukranian Guides from different parts of Ukraine; sharing experience and activities; training programmes for leaders; one-day hiking by the picturesque Carpathian paths; some traditional Ukrainian workshops and crafts; competitions, contests, entertaining evening programs, theatric activities. Especially for English guests the sight-seeing programme was organised with the excursions to Chernivtsi, Hotyn, Chernigiv, Kyiv.

We are looking forward to developing the further cooperation :)