Learning the language and culture of your ancestral heritage is a precious gift to open! Canada provides top notch public school education, and fabulous Ukrainian Bilingual Programs in many of the large cities, places like Edmonton, Vegreville, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Dauphin and Toronto. The students who are fortunate enough to participate often become polyglots - fluent in many languages - and not only in the languages of their familial ancestry. Elsewhere things are perhaps a bit more complicated.
Fortunately for "elsewhere", there are great opportunities opening up for summer studies in Ukraine. Take for example this L'viv Summer Course offered by the University of Alberta. They are announcing the twelfth annual travel study course hosted by the University of Alberta's Ukrainian Language and Literature Program in L'viv, Ukraine to take place from May 17th to June 14, 2013.
Ukrainian Through Its Living Culture is an opportunity to explore the culture and local flavour of the Ukrainian world, while practicing your language skills in a living experience. If you are interested in what could be the most memorable experience of your life, you will find L'viv Ukraine is a beautiful city. The program itself is full of educational value, not only the academic kind, but learning from an immersion in the culture and daily life of this vibrant Western Ukrainian city.
A recent CNN article calls L'viv "Little Paris of Ukraine." That sounds like high praise to me, so it's a wonder that so many waves of Ukrainian immigration to Canada eminated from L'viv and area - there clearly must be layers of the story we don't necessarily know about in the western world.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/12/travel/lviv-ukraine-culture-capital/index.html
To make things even more interesting, I have discovered that there is financial support for potential candidates of this program too. Makes it a very worthwhile little detour from the daily grind, eh!
For more information, see the course site at
http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/ukraina/study_in_ukraine/ukrainian_through_its_liv/
or contact the instructors yourself at
Dr. Alla Nedashkivska, Associate Professor
Undergraduate Academic Advisor: Ukrainian
Chair, MLCS Curriculum Committee
Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
University of Alberta, 200 Arts Building
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E6
TEL [general office] (780) 492-4926
FAX 492-9106
Dr. Alla Nedashkivska, Associate Professor
Undergraduate Academic Advisor: Ukrainian
Chair, MLCS Curriculum Committee
Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
University of Alberta, 200 Arts Building
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E6
TEL [general office] (780) 492-4926
FAX 492-9106
