The camp is one of the initiatives of the New York Literary Festival, founded by writer Victoria Amelina. The main partner of the event is the Initiative Youth of Ukrainian New York. The camp was held with the financial support of the International Renaissance Foundation.
The artistic and educational camp brought together the winners and nominees of the New York Literary Festival (NLF) essay contest with the focus theme ‘De-occupation of the Future’. In total, more than 50 texts were submitted to the competition. The jury selected more than 20 camp participants from among their authors. The authors of the essays that did not make it to the camp received additional prizes from the NLF and Staryi Lev Publishing House – certificates for the purchase of books.
The essay contest for students in grades 9-11 was launched by writer Victoria Amelina at the first New York Literary Festival in autumn 2021. In January 2022, the winners of the first competition went on an educational trip to Kyiv and Lviv. After the full-scale invasion began, in 2023, Victoria wanted to gather teenagers and young people from New York at a camp in the Carpathians. The writer was killed in the Russian shelling of Kramatorsk a month before the planned trip with New Yorkers. The development of the NLF, including the essay contest and subsequent camps, is now being handled by Victoria Amelina’s friends and family.
‘The focus theme of this year’s essay contest is ‘De-occupying the Future’, which is the slogan of the second NLF, which Vika came up with. The festival was scheduled for autumn 2022 and, of course, did not take place due to the full-scale war. We wanted teenagers to reflect on this topic in their texts instead. In addition, the essay competition was also expanded in line with Vika’s idea. The first competition was limited to schools in New York City, but even then there were other institutions that approached her with questions about whether they could participate later, and the second NLF should have more participants. That’s why we invited students from all schools in the Bakhmut district to participate in the 2024 competition,’ says co-organiser Khrystyna Shevchenko.
Teenagers from New York, Bakhmut, Zvanivka, Toretsk, Svitlodarsk and Soledar came to NYCamp. Lectures and workshops on writing and acting, music, and art therapy were held by writer and artist Kateryna Mikhalitsyna, musician and artist, founder of the Pie and Whip project Marian Pirih, film director and screenwriter Maryna Stepanska, and journalist and Bookforum program director Sofia Chelyak. The participants were able to transfer the drawings created at the workshops to their own T-shirts using special equipment and take them with them after the camp. They were assisted by New York activist Andriy Kovalchuk. In addition, the winners of the essay contest are awarded grants for educational courses and projects of their choice by the New York Literary Festival.
‘Just like last year, the camp was attended by participants from the same city or school who saw each other live for the first time since the full-scale invasion. Each time it is an incredible experience for them and for us. For us, the most important thing at such events is to create a space of trust and mutual support, to give the teenagers the opportunity to feel a little more at home thanks to the people they spend these few days in the mountains with, even if their real home is far away, destroyed by the Russians. To tell them about Vika and everything she did and planned to do for the Donetsk region. NYCamp lecturers always represent very different creative professions so that participants can learn as much as possible, have the opportunity to receive mentoring support from them and simply ask the lecturers anything they are interested in. For the second year, we have also been cooperating with the Museum of Military Childhood, and researcher Andriy Borutia is coming to the camp, and everyone can give him an interview if they wish. It is very important for us that young people ‘grow up’ with the project – for example, last year Andriy Kovalchuk was one of the participants in the first NYCamp, and this year he came up with the idea to hold an event with teenagers and create something with them with their own hands and according to their own design,’ concludes co-organiser Olya Rusina.
The New York Literary Festival was founded by Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina in 2021. Shortly before that, the small town near occupied Horlivka was given its historical name of New York, instead of the previous name of Novhorodske, imposed in Soviet times.
On 27 June 2023, Victoria was seriously injured during a Russian shelling of the centre of Kramatorsk. Viktoriia Amelina died on 1 July 2023 at Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro. Viktoriia Amelina is the author of the books The November Syndrome, Home for Home, E-E-Excavator Eka’s Story, and a posthumous collection of poems, Testimony. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the writer also joined the human rights organisation Truth Hounds and documented Russian war crimes. Her works have been translated into English, Polish, Czech, German, Dutch, Spanish and other languages.
