UNC Charlotte students partner with Russian students to promote healthy living

Students at UNC Charlotte are partnering with students in Russia to promote healthy living, through a collaboration created by program director Yuliya Baldwin and funded by the U.S. Department of State.

“When I saw this grant being offered, I immediately knew that I would like to partner with Russia simply because UNC Charlotte had never done any type of exchange with Russia,” said Baldwin, a lecturer in Russian in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

She and the department are working with the Department of Foreign Languages at Voronezh State Medical Academy in Russia on this project centered on Russian-American, peer-to-peer collaboration. The U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue program is focused on bringing healthy living closer to college students in two Sister Cities while promoting a healthy lifestyle among young people.

Yelena Veliko, a psychology major who is a senior officer with the Russian Club, works alongside Baldwin closely as the event organizer, as well as working with a student-faculty team.

“We want the students to not only gain experience in traveling abroad and learning more about health issues but to also gain leadership and team-working skills because it will be a lot of that,” Veliko said.

The program consists of two components – Virtual Communication and Face2Face Communication. Each phase has included activities promoting a healthy lifestyle. Virtual communication activities via Facebook, Twitter, video conferencing, Skype, YouTube, emails and texting are a crucial component of the project, because the 10 most active participants from each country will be chosen for exchange visits from May 13- 24.

Face2Face Communication will consist of the reciprocal 10-day exchange visits and include panels, meetings, speakers, workshops, cooking contests, team building exercises, walks and sports activities. The grant will cover the students’ air tickets, hotel accommodations, visas, and per diem. Participants in the cultural exchange from UNC Charlotte will receive one credit hour.

The Face2Face stage ends by June 1. The participants will meet via video conference in late June to check on each other, recall the time spent together, watch videos and pictures and plan for the next visit, Baldwin said.

Program organizers consider the most important outcome of this program will be the open peer-to-peer interaction and the development of understanding between the two countries – especially the potential for lasting friendships between the participants.

Image: Yuliya Baldwin, Andrei Cordovan, Yelena Veliko, Justin Gleaves and Sheri Spaine-Long