Caldogno's drop in the ocean: (Italian town opens up to children from the Ukraine through efforts of Francesca Lomastro).

This year 400 children from the Ukraine will enjoy a holiday in northern Italy, thanks to the people of the small town of Caldogno, near Vicenza. Their visits have led to a remarkable cultural link between Caldogno and Kiev.

The project is the initiative of Francesca Lomastro, a historian who works for Istituto per la Ricerca di Storia Sociale e Religiosa in Vicenza and lives in Caldogno. Six years ago, when the town council had to appoint a new chair of its library committee, her cultural activity made her the obvious choice.

One of her tasks was to organize Peace Day, which is traditionally held on the first Sunday of the year. She was advised to invite a guest speaker, a volunteer who arranges holidays that take Ukrainian children away from the persisting radiation of Chernobyl.

Lomastro was fired by the idea; she enrolled 40 local families to give hospitality and made arrangements for transport and visa expenses. The town council backed her idea with a substantial contribution, which became a permanent item in the budget. The project spread to neighbouring communities and has kept growing.

Lomastro is the first to admit that it is just a drop in the ocean of the needs of the Ukraine. `Nobody can change the world by themselves, but each of us can do something,' she said. Fortunately there are similar committees all over Italy.

Soon events took an unexpected turn that makes Lomastro's committee unique. The Caldogno families began to feel they had adopted the Ukrainian children and to visit them at home in the Ukraine. They fell in love with the Ukraine and marvelled at the striking contrast between a refined culture with widespread education and severe economic constraints.

`It is quite a lesson to realize that poverty does not mean backwardness,' says Lomastro. `In fact sometimes the reverse happens.' Some of the Ukrainian interpreters who had accompanied the children formed a voluntary group to carry out the cumbersome paperwork. Then twin associations were established: one in Caldogno and the other in Kiev, which have taken a strong stand in refusing to give in to corrupt practices and helped speed up the paperwork.

The Italian association, Il Ponte-Mict (`The Bridge' in Italian and Ukrainian) is organizing an opportunity for a group of students from the Kiev Academy of Art and some Italian students to work together and exhibit their work at the Museo Casabianca of graphic art in the Vicenza area. Francesca is battling for the exhibition to be taken to a gallery of international fame so that it can prime a lively exchange between Ukrainian and Italian artists.

The Ukraine Embassy in Rome has chosen Il Ponte-Mict to produce a much needed brochure in Italian to describe the Ukraine to prospective visitors.

Lomastro is driven by the realization that the Ukraine has great wealth in culture, human skills and natural resources which must be salvaged before the present economic straits cause it to be depleted. She sighs, `I must confess that knocking at doors without getting an immediate response is very hard. Sometimes I wish I had not caught this "bug" ...'