Date: May 26, 2000

Mr. Bill Coleman
President CORBIA, USA
15 Wellington Ave.
Greenville, SC 29609

Re: Great need for English language books in Ukraine

Dear Sir:

Allow me to bring to your attention the great need we have for English books in Ukraine and in Ternopil City especially. All school children, students and other people who learn English must do so in total absence of English books, could confirm my words.

Ternopil City with a population of 240,000 can rightfully be called a city of students. In our city we have a total of 29 schools at or below what you call High School level. These schools have a combined total of 31,500 students. In addition, we have 8 Colleges and 6 Universities, Institutes and Academies with a combined total of 26, 000 students from the city of Ternopil, Ternopil Region and other parts of Ukraine. All students in higher education work to learn English. In the lower levels, approximately 27,000 are taught English (not all schools have English lessons from first grade, in some schools they wait until 3rd grade or 4th grade). I can also add here all numerous private courses of English for adults, who must learn by self-education.

Ternopil City is the regional capital and students from over 850 schools in the region also come to Ternopil in search of English books for their education. The same situation exists in all regions of Ukraine. It seems that we are a nation in search of English books and English language material of all types.

Mainly the level of knowledge of those who learn English is very poor. The desire is great to learn but it is like building a great building without any tools. It is very difficult to arrive at a good result if you do not have the means to get there.

1. We try to learn English with virtual total absence of English books in our bookstores. All of the textbooks found in the schools and colleges give just list of grammar rules of the language, short texts for reading in class and short home exercises. Without additional reading it is impossible to acquire language as something alive with its own soul and beauty. I dare to compare the learning of live English in our schools to trying to learn Latin or ancient Grecian without having anything else to support and broaden the learning.

2. We have no public centers, which can serve as centers of the culture of English language. We have no way to study, learn and understand the history and present life of western countries. We have no way to learn about democracy, free enterprise or market economies. We can not learn about the moral and ethical values or the culture of western societies. We can not learn from the great poets, scholars, historians and political thinkers of the West. In short, we have no one center that shows English as a widely spread, international, universal language that it is. Our teachers tell us this fact, but there is so little chance to see or use the English language, that we don't have any block-busting confirmation that it is true.

Before I try to write this letter I visited almost all larger bookstores, bookstalls and kiosks in the City. There are a total of 14. Everywhere I saw the same picture. They may have 3-4 different textbooks of different languages, 2-3 pocket dictionaries, maybe a short brochure or two but nothing more. In the two largest bookstores I saw only 3 poor-looking children books in English. In our newly independent country (which is enduring a very eruptive development of national culture which was suppressed in the time of Soviet regime) 90% of all books are in Russian. Who do you think has more influence on our young children? For example, I work very hard with my daughter, teaching her some foreign languages, but her knowledge of English and Polish is very poor. In the same time she fluently reads and speaks Russian though I never encouraged her to learn it.

Our own public library leaves much to be desired. It is suppose to serve a region of 1.2 million people, but it can accommodate only 120 readers if every space was filled. I live in a very small apartment but I make room for a few books. I must say that my personal home library has more English language books that the regional library.

I hope very much that our cooperation can change this situation. The people of South Carolina have in the past saved many of our children from the dyptheria epidemic death; you have helped us create a burn center to treat the seriously burned of our country and you have influenced the outcome of the elections in western Ukraine toward democracy. Now we once again need very much the help of our friends in America and in South Carolina in particular. We ask you for all of those English language books that you have sitting on the shelves, in the basement or in the attic that you don't want to throw away but that you wish you could get rid of. Send them to us. We will put them to good use and teach our children about democracy, the West and how to become good global citizens. We can then rely less and less on the Russian for our learning and gain a wider, healthier viewpoint.

Thank you and God bless you all,



Alexander Laevchenko
Chairman, Ukrainian Center for Public Initiatives