DWE mission was discussed during some strategic meetings and workshops in October 11-15, 2004.

• Meeting with UTOH President, Victor Maksymenko

Meeting with UTOH President, Victor Maksymenko and obtaining an agreement for our future work. Also, present were Iryna Chepchyna, Olena Kropyvina, Maryna Leferova who translated for Iryna, and Victor, who is deaf but is able to speak. From our side, we had Andriy Bilyk, Halyna Paikouch, Ihor Katernyak, and George Gamota. Maksymenko received reports of the course at Loyola and was eager to continue to work together to implement the program of helping the deaf community. Specifically, Gamota asked for and received his verbal and written agreement to offer courses at the cultural centers and provide access to the computer and the Internet to the people interested in using them, including the factory personnel in the area. With computers already available at two centers (Lviv, Kyiv) and the headquarters, we agreed to provide similar equipment at two other centers in Kharkiv and Mykolayiv. To ensure that the four support persons will be qualified, UDL will set up a short one week training course on the use of the computer, access to the Internet, and minor troubleshooting.

• Seminar at Drahomanov University

Meeting with Rector. Present were: Rector Victor Petrovych Andruschenko, Director of Distance Learning Institute Anatolyi Petrovych Kudin, Director of Institute of Correctional Pedagogy and Psychology, Victor Mykolayevych Senyov, First Deputy Director of Institute of Correctional Pedagogy and Psychology Mariya Kupryyanovna Sheremet, George Gamota, Ihor Katerniak, Andy Bilyk, and Halyna Paikouch. The meeting was opened by the rector who expressed his warm felt thanks to Loyola for providing his people the training in DL, and was eager to see DL being implemented throughout his university, not just in the DL Institute.

The seminar was in a well-equipped room with a projector and computer, and was attended by about 10 people, including Anatolij Kudin prorector, Lilya Kharchenko and Yurij Svystun, Iryna Martynenko, they then proceeded to show the elements of the courses they developed at Loyola and answered any questions from the participants. The people were from the two institutes, the Distance Learning Institute and the Institute of Correctional Pedagogy and Psychology. From DWE side there were G. Gamota, H. Paikouch, I.Katerniak, and A.Bilyk. Drahomanov was planning to launch a series of DL courses, with a physics course already developed, biology, and Ukrainian language courses was in the works. A. Kudin indicated that DL courses would be offered as early as this December. Iryna Martyneneko introduced her course on speech correction, and has already tasked three teachers and plans to offer them to students at the university. A.Kudin also plans to hold a conference in May, and provide the results of the DL courses given at the university.

• Seminar at UTOH Cultural Center

The seminar was held at the cultural center in Kyiv, with about 150 persons attending. Most were young and almost all were deaf. The equipment provided by Loyola, including the projector, was used. Iryna Chepchyna opened the seminar, thanking Loyola for the help and training and presented her course on UTOH. G.Gamota followed and gave a short talk on behalf of Loyola, and expressed satisfaction that we could help. I. Katerniak then spoke about the assignments and responsibilities given to the teachers, after they prepared themselves during the Loyola Course. He noted the responsibility of people to stay on top of their profession and continue their education using DL.

Presentations were then given by Yurij Svystun on web page design, Olena Kropyvina gave a talk on her course of business planning, and Maryna Leferova spoke on her course of sign language. The attendees were quite interested and asked many questions of all the presenters.