The history of the Vinnytsia Cooperative Institute (VCI) dates back to 1925, when the Cooperative school was founded in Vinnytsia. In 2008 Vinnytsia Cooperative Institute was established with Cooperative College of Economics and Law in its structure. In 2020 in the education conglomerate Polish lyceum of Humanities and IT named after Janusz Korczak (PLHIT) was opened. College of Economics and Law puts a special accent on international cooperation (professional training programs in Germany and Italy). Our students have the opportunity to do a 3-month practical training course in restaurants and hotels in Germany. They gain valuable experience of living in a foreign country during summer vacation, get to know their culture, make useful acquaintances, improve your language skills, and earn money. Besides, our institution has partnership with UCM - NGO of professional cooks, Italy. Thanks to this project our student have the opportunity to visit Italy and work as pizza man, barman and waiter's assistants in Italian restaurants and hotels. This experience is hard to overestimate, because during the academic year the students attend master-classes held by the Chef, learn Italian and then, on completion of the project, obtain certificates. Many of our students do the course 2 and more times, because the project executives encourage them professionally and financially. PLHIT is a secondary school educational establishment that aims at building strong ties between Poland and Ukraine not only on the level of science and education, but also culture and sport. It is a secondary school with a wide range of subjects taught and students who are interested in science, art, human studies, sport and everything related to Poland, Polish history, literature, geography and language.Vinnytsia is the region where there many historic places connected with famous Poles and where a big number of ethnic Poles are still living. PLHIT is a unique school in our region, with a special accent on learning English and Polish. We are proud of our friendly atmosphere and we can boast of many innovative methods of teaching and working with students developed by our professional staff. Both students and teachers are outgoing and always open for contact to exchange ideas and views, as well as to share cultural identities and promote democratic values.

Our experience at the implementation of educational projects on the national level is quite rich. Still we are open for any initiative and fruitful collaboration in any sphere of education, culture, sport and recreational activities. We are truly proud of our organized trips to Poland (Krakow, Zakopane, Bialy Dunajets, Oświęcim, Rzeszow, Brzozow, Warsaw, Kielce, Przemysl, Ustron), sports competitions (soccer, volleyball, table tennis), scientific conferences and forums, weeks of Erasmus+, art exhibitions, volunteering and crowd funding activities. As for EU projects, until now we mainly took part in he Erasmus+ project on different subjects, and namely: "Begin with senses" (Poronin, Poland. 2022); The Art of Volunteering” (Brzozów, Poland. 2022); "Power of Emotion" (Brzozów, Poland. 2023); "Two Colours of Freedom” (Brzozow, Poland. 2024). Our students prepared a lot of activities with students from different countries (Italy, Lithuania, Burgaria, Poland, Romania). All the projects have been fairly memorable for us. Our students were able to demonstrate a high level of motivation, self-drive, initiative and reliability. They sufficiently improved their level of English, gained various interpersonal and cultural experiences, got rid of complexes that previously prevented them from effective studying, generating ideas and free expression of themsleves. All the performances and cultural evening they prepared were full of partriotic spirit and desire to demonstrate resilience, perseverance and love for their country. At "National evenings' they presented Ukraine on an exclusively high level of personal engagement: everyone was involved. They cooked national Ukrainian dishes, performed, danced and sang. The project topics ranged from volunteering to inclusion, and our students were able to open for themselves the new horizons of human communication. Especially sensitive for them was the project "Begin with senses" where the teams from Poland and Lithuania were made of visually impaired young people aged 13-18, and it was a true revelation for us to discover a different and very emphatic world of people with disabilities. The result of the project was a staged performance where every one acted a role, though it was quite challenging for many of them! We are open for friendships, communication and all kinds of initiatives aimed at building healthy and strong democratic societies. We are reaching out for your open hearts and friendly hands!