Cultivating Young Political Leaders

Ivan Omelyan discusses a law “On Student Self-government” with Kharkiv students (Photo: courtesy of Ivan Omelyan). August 18, 2009. Ivan Omelyan began to develop an interest in politics after joining the youth branch of a Ukrainian political party in 2005.  After two years of working as a volunteer, the senior party members recognized that Ivan had potential and recommended that he apply to the Young Political Leadership School in Kharkiv to further his knowledge of successful political activism. Young Political Leadership Schools are three-to-four month intensive seminars sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the Eastern Ukraine Democracy Development Foundation.  The seminars are held on weekends to impart theoretical and practical knowledge to young people, who want to take their activism to the next level.  Students are chosen through a competitive application process.  Lecturers and trainers for the classes are recognized experts who come from local and national parties, non-governmental organizations, academia and journalism.  Through a grant from USAID, IRI currently manages schools in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Odesa, Zhytomyr, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. In 2007, Ivan became a student of the Kharkiv school.  According to Ivan, the Young Political Leadership School has greatly influenced his life.  By learning communication skills, PR-technologies and essentials of campaigning, he acquired invaluable knowledge, which he promptly implemented into practice. After graduating, Ivan participated in a Kharkiv regional political youth festival.  The event simulated elections, in which a local youth parliament and leaders were chosen.  Ivan’s sociability and tactfulness, coupled with the knowledge he gained while studying at the Young Political Leadership School contributed to his winning the top rank in the festival - the Student Mayor.  Though this position does not come with any official sanction by actual governmental structures, he and his team started to work actively as if they were empowered to help solve local problems in their community, particularly those issues important to students.  Ivan’s leadership and team’s success led to his nomination to the Kharkiv student team at the All-Ukrainian national competition.  While many other participants received financial support from local governments, Ivan's team raised funds to pay for his participation in the competition.  The self-sponsored team from Kharkiv won two of 15 seats in the student parliament in the course of the mock parliament elections.  However, the election of the student president of the All-Ukraine group was the most anticipated part of the program.  At the culmination of the event, Ivan was elected the student president by a comfortable margin.  “This victory motivated me to work for the sake of improving students’ lives not only in Kharkiv now, but all over Ukraine,” said Ivan after his victory. Today Ivan successfully continues in his role of Deputy Chairman for his party’s Kharkiv regional office.  Ivan also supervises a project, which promotes student self-government in Ukraine through advocacy activities learned in the Young Political Leadership School.  He also serves as an expert in discussion on amendments to draft laws on education, particularly those that relate to student self-government.  “The training I have received from this project has really allowed me to effectively advocate for something I feel passionate about, and which I believe will empower students across the country to change the way many things are done in the education sphere.” For more information about the Young Political Leadership Schools or for information on how to apply, please contact Oleksandr Sputay at osputay@iri.org.

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