060-EN - REUPLOAD - Nataliya Cummings about Experience Ukraine

I am re-posting older episodes with the amazing Ukrainian Ladies that I had the pleasure to meet through my podcast: Nataliya and Olia.

If you would like to help people in Ukraine, you can donate here Help young people of Ukraine (experienceukraine.co.uk)

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We recorded the interview on 1st October 2020 and what a coincidence that on the same date, 15 years ago, Nataliya and her best friend Tania, founded a theatre in a remote village in Transcarpathia, Ukraine. This project is very close to their heart, as it is encouraging children to engage with arts, it is free and it gives them the possibility of being creative and of building a different kind of path in future in various areas of arts. Usually, they organize a festival to raise funds much needed for running this project, but this year, due to obvious reasons, the festival was cancelled. So if you would like to encourage this project with any donation, here's a link to the JustGiving page.

But this is only one of the many things that Nataliya does to support her community.

Nataliya is normally organizing bespoke and authentic travel experiences in Ukraine (and beyond), but that was severely affected by the pandemic. However, before things go back and running, you should know about these amazing tours so that you can book them when conditions allow.

These travel experiences are very authentic, they are not your usual thing that you can find on the internet. Nataliya always has community and sustainability in mind, so she is very thoughtful about every single aspect of it: travel there and stay as local as possible; only use local transport and local services so that the money can go back to the community, without affecting it from a touristic point of view; engaging with local activities; trying local food and drinks; exploring nature; trying the best to not use any plastic and even doing cleanups etc. In order to have a better idea about these tours, please visit the Experience Ukraine and Beyond Website.

The other thing that Nataliya does to support the small artisans, is promoting selling their carefully made crafts (sold at markets in the UK or on the website), from embroidered clothing made of very good quality fabrics, to wooden spoons, handwoven bulrush slippers etc.

Nataliya is a joy to talk to, and we even spoke about growing your own food, wonky veg, tasteless food, coriander, food waste and many more interesting subjects.

I hope you enjoy it.

You can find Nataliya as well on Facebook or Instagram.