00:00The Ukrainian Community Association Charity has been supporting Ukraine since the war started.
00:06So we provide humanitarian aid, we deliver aid ourselves directly to the front lines in Ukraine.
00:11We communicate with the soldiers on the front lines, with just the civilians,
00:15and we try to build relationships in Ukraine to see how we can help.
00:19On this particular trip, I was in Ukraine when Alex Sobo has called me,
00:24and then he told me about this great project and how exciting it would be
00:28to bring these children to the UK for a week, to take them away from Kharkiv,
00:32which is one of the front line cities in Ukraine, and it's huge.
00:36And most of the boys are 15 years old, so for the last five years of the life of the
00:40teenage years,
00:41they have been living in the conditions of the war in the country, unfortunately.
00:46So I think this week will give them an opportunity to look back one day at the teenage years
00:51and remember this as a nice thing to do, not just living in the country
00:56that you never know what tomorrow is going to bring.
00:58Football is my life. I have dreamt to come to the UK and see what football is like in the
01:04UK.
01:04I have always wanted to try to play on the football pitch in the UK as well.
01:10We knew that the boys are going to be staying here for just over a week,
01:13so we tried to pack the schedules with Leeds in Yorkshire and many other things
01:17besides the training that they were so excited for and they have a game on today.
01:21So we visited museums, galleries and parks, just regular sightseeing.
01:27This week was full of events and the road here was very difficult, but it absolutely was worth it.
01:33I'm very grateful for the team which organised this, especially to the coaches, Brian and Adam.
01:39They really put a lot of work and the organisers to make our experience in the UK nice.
01:46The relationships that we have built here and the friendships, I'm sure they will last for a very long time
01:51and we're hoping to see more teams coming from Kharkiv to Leeds next year.
01:56Football trains me and teaches me not only football techniques but discipline
02:01and the qualities which will come in handy in my daily life.
02:06It's been great to train obviously on the pitches with different teams and experience different approach as well.
02:11We are from different countries therefore we have different styles of teaching
02:15so we had quite a lot of impressions from the previous trainings.
02:20We took a lot of notes of how the British coaches do that and we wrote it down so we
02:27can repeat the experience in Ukraine.
02:31This trip shows us the importance of hard work.
02:34One thing that unites them is the joy, the competition and the excitement for the young boys to join.
02:40This is an international game for the boys because they left their home country.
02:44They came to Leeds and they met new kids.
02:46Hopefully they'll stay friends for life with them and they'll stay in touch.
02:50So it's been great, they learned new things, they will go back home and apply the new methods
02:55that they learned here in Leeds which is great and I'm sure they'll meet again in the future as well.
02:59Thank you very much more.
02:59MELISSA
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