Eldersburg resident works with Peace Corps in Ukraine

Eldersburg native Joshua Davis is hard at work across the world, volunteering with the Peace Corps in Ukraine.

Davis, 24, graduated from Liberty High School in 2006, and later went on to graduate from Towson University in 2010 with a degree in History and a specialization in secondary education.

As his college graduation approached, Davis began thinking about his future.

"I decided I wanted to join [the Peace Corps] because I wanted an adventure," he said in an email. "I also wanted a job where I could wake up and be proud."

So, he applied to the Peace Corps.

The application and all of the necessary interviews took him a year to complete, but in the end Davis was accepted into the Peace Corps and all of his hard work was worth it, he said.

Davis is one of 249 Maryland residents currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers, according to Peace Corps spokeswoman Kelly McCormack.

McCormack said since the Peace Corps was founded by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, 5,530 Maryland residents have served as volunteers.

A total of more than 210,000 Americans have served in 139 countries since the organization was founded. Currently, 8,073 volunteers are serving in 76 host countries.

Peace Corps volunteers must be at least 18 years old, and must make a 27-month commitment to the agency, McCormack said.

Davis began his 27-month commitment in March 2011 when he was sent to Ukraine.

The first three months of his assignment were spent in training, learning the local language, culture and tradition.

After training he was sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and sent to his assignment site - the village of Kutsurub.

Kutsurub is a village of about 2,500 people, Davis said, in Southern Ukraine. It is on the Black Sea and is about three hours East of the city of Odessa.

There is an American who lives in the neighboring town, and three Americans in a city about one hour North of Kutsurub, Davis said, but he only sees them on occasion.

However, Davis said after living in Ukraine for a year and a half, he has made a lot of Ukrainian friends and no longer feels isolated so far from home.

His main job is to teach English to students from second to eleventh grade. The school he works in has three English teachers, and he assists them with lessons. He also has what he calls a Ukrainian counterpart in teacher Sasha Kargina, who Davis said is a very progressive teacher.

Aside from his official assignment to teach English, Davis has worked on several side projects during his time in Kutsurub.

With the help of grants and donations from American sponsors, he updated the school's technology and teaching supplies, taught a seminar on anti-human trafficking, and taught at English summer camps.

On Wednesdays he has an English Grammar Club for seventh, eighth and ninth graders, and on Tuesdays he has an English Club for ninth and tenth graders.

Davis's favorite side project so far, he said, was when he invited four volunteers to his village to help paint a mural on the back wall of his classroom.

His students came in to help with the mural, and he let them take the lead.

"Letting students take the lead is a progressive idea here and confused a lot of teachers," he said. "This is a post-soviet society where people are used to being told what to do and think. I, on the other hand, gave my students the brushes and said, 'Have at it,' and they made me proud."

Now Davis is working on another side project that he is also very passionate about - improving the school's gym.

Davis said students are expected to practice sports during gym class with deflated or worn out balls, in outdated and dangerous facilities. Without funding, the school might not have been able to continue sports education after this year, he said.

The Peace Corps Partnership Program, which helps support Peace Corps volunteer community projects, has helped to fund all of Davis's projects. Through the program a community must make a 25 percent contribution to the total project cost.

As of the last week in November, Davis and the local community in Kutsurub had raised the more than $5,000 needed to buy equipment for his gym-improvement project.

Improving the school's gym is important to Davis because he believes it will give his students a supervised place to go after school.

Alcohol is a big problem among his students, he said, and many of them say they drink because they are bored or simply because they can. There are no restaurants or movie theaters in the village, and parents are often away at work.

The legal drinking age in Ukraine is 18.

"I want to solve the problem of drinking in a more progressive way. Instead of lecturing kids about the dangers of drinking, which they have heard, I want to give them a fun supervised place to go," Davis said. "I hope this experiment is successful and that by tackling one of the root problems my kids will be less likely to drink in excess."

Davis said the community has worked hard to raise the funds needed, and has already started remodeling the gym in anticipation of the new equipment.

In December, when the funds arrive in Ukraine, Davis will go with teachers from the school, as well as a few students, to buy the new equipment.

Davis said he is excited to have student representatives with him to pick out the equipment they need the most.

Out of all the work he has done with Peace Corps in Ukraine, Davis said just simply talking with his students has been his favorite thing to do.

"My favorite moments are sitting with some of my eleventh graders and sharing a cup of hot chocolate or some American food and just talking about the day," he said. "When I arrived all my students could say is, 'Hello, my name is,' and that was it. Now after a year and a half of practicing a lot of the older students can engage me in conversation."

There are three particular students, Andrey, Igor, and Anton, who come into Davis's classroom every day just to talk. Davis said these three have worked especially hard on their English, and they have greatly improved.

Davis said he loves his job, his students, and his life in Ukraine. He's not sure yet if he will return home to America in June, or if he will extend his contract with the Peace Corps.

For now, he is focusing on enjoying each day spent with his students.

"We aren't here to save the world. Most people don't need saving. We are here to share a skill, teach about America, and learn about a new culture," Davis said. "I have the most amazing students ever. Every day I walk into school and am greeted with smiles, hellos, and handshakes."