PHILADELPHIA – The contest “Going from Childhood to Taras” is one of many programs in Ukraine sponsored by the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee (UUARC). The purpose of this competition is to promote and foster patriotism and identity among the youth of Ukraine through study and recitations of poems by Taras Shevchenko.
The winners of the contest – 28 children from Luhansk Oblast (in May), 27 each from the oblasts of Ivano-Frankivsk and Donetsk (in June), and 28 from Mykolayiv Oblast (in August) – were rewarded with a trip to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and Kaniv, where the poet is buried.