Episode Transcript
Femininity is powerful in all its forms, exceptional women.
Rare girls must be appreciated in every way for their perspectives, actions, thoughts,
and their unique ways of being.
Such rare girls are inspiring.
And this is what this podcast is all about.
Hello, my name is Aziz and my guest today is Lyuba Tanshak.
Lyuba is the president of 48th High School in Kyiv, Ukraine.
She is a Ukrainian folk singer, an English language tutor, a volunteer, and an active
leader of SHARM, which is the active district youth of Shevchenkivsky area.
All the school presidents are part of it.
And since autumn started, she had an opportunity to make a video for the International Forum
in New York.
Lyuba, how are you today?
I'm fine, thanks, what about you?
I'm feeling happy, honored, lucky, and very curious about you.
So if I could describe your personality or ask you a question about how your friends
think about you, how would they say you are as a person?
What would they say about you?
Oh, it's an interesting question.
So I think they would say something like, she is very kind person, we love her so much
because they respect me and I'm really proud that I have their respect.
So yeah, I'm 100% sure they will say just positive things and I don't have some eminems
or it sounds like this, so yeah.
I love that, and to ask you then, in your opinion, what makes a leader respected?
What is good leadership and how should someone, maybe there is a girl who is your age or younger,
she wants to become a leader, what would you tell her the meaning of leadership and how
to be respected as a good leader?
So I think leadership, it's not just about respect, it's also about your soft skills
and how can you communicate and socialize with each other.
So my relationship with my colleagues and with my subordinates, it's not just respect,
maybe it's something more like friendship and I understand them and they understand me.
I love that, and I have a question for you as an English tutor.
What did leadership teach you that allows you to become a better English tutor?
Are there similarities?
Should tutors do some volunteering leadership to learn to teach better or leaders should
teach so that they learn how to be better leaders?
What's your perspective on that and how is your way of tutoring English and was it somehow
influenced by your leadership experiences?
So a short story about my tutoring, I think a year ago I had a huge idea, I wasn't very
actively there, but I had this idea to become a tutor because to teach someone it's the
best way to, I think it's the best way to practice, to practice your English.
So I wrote a big message with pleasure and I sent it to some big groups and I found one
student and it was a success for me.
It was a small boy, maybe five or six years and I started, it was a big stress for me,
I was so nervous, but on the second lesson I felt more comfortable, I understood that
I am the teacher and he is the student, like yeah, I am a boss.
So I can't say that leadership helped me, but then when I became very active leader
of SHARM, I think the best skill from SHARM that helped my tutoring is to know your time
and the time management is very, very, very useful and yeah, you need it because you often
should know what is your plans, what will you tell on this lesson.
So yeah, I think it's the best skill and what about my lessons as a volunteer?
This summer I found a great platform called, if I'm not mistaken, Let's Shake Hands.
So it's a great platform where you can teach pupils, students, Ukrainian students that
are somewhere abroad.
It was a great experience, but it was really hard because before I had just one student
and then I started to have maybe seven students per day and it was really very hard, but I
felt so comfortable and I felt that I'm doing something great, something that will help
our country, help this, I think people, small people, children that are somewhere there
in Poland, Sweden, no way to know this language because it's international.
So yeah.
Thank you.
I have so many questions about that, but I'll focus on time management since you said it's
a very essential skill and I will ask you, and you having seven students per day so you
have experience with doing a lot of work, how do you avoid burning out?
How do you know when you're doing too much or do you do too much but then you know how
to relax sometimes or how do you keep your mental health and your productivity okay without
exhausting yourself and burning out?
So my answer for this it's that I definitely burn out mentally because I didn't think
about this that oh it's just seven lessons every day and you have the rest of time, just
you can relax but it was really hard, I had awful sore throat and yeah I burn out and
I started to cancel length lessons but then I just decided to to crest for maybe a week
or two and for these two weeks I haven't done anything, like I was just laying on the bed
drinking lemonade and of course I volunteered but I took rest and then I felt that I have
more energy, that I have more motivation and I started with more pleasure, with more power
force and yeah I think this is very hard of course when you're a tutor, a leader, when
you study English and do some sport and of course I'm a musician and when you have a
lot of chores it's very very hard not to burn out but with experience you will got it like
when you want to rest and when you want to work you will get your like you, you will
get you, you will get what makes you inspired, when should you relax, when you feel mentally
burnt out and yeah I think you just experience.
I love how much you desire experience and how to learn about life and about yourself
and I have a question about you being involved in Charm and you networking, meeting other
presidents of schools and other people who open new opportunities, how do you think for
you is the right way to network and to make new friends and to open opportunities, imagine
there are other girls your age who want to learn to think oh my god I don't know I feel
shy about meeting other successful people or I don't know what to talk about or how
to make such new friends in those organizations, what was your experience and what would you
recommend?
So when I came to Charm I was very nervous, I wasn't a school president but I was like
very inspired and I was very very very nervous and when I just opened this room I saw a lot
of girls, girls and boys my age and maybe age older, I thought I'm going to die in that
moment, I was very very nervous but I started to communicate to socialize with them and
turned out that they are very outgoing, very friendly and it was such a sweet meeting,
so yeah, my recommendation for all girls that want to become social leader but don't know
how, just search your opportunities because you always have your opportunity, maybe communicate
with your text to your school president, maybe became president of your school, became an
exceptional dancer, I don't know or a singer, it's all in your hands and you can do all
that you want if you really want it.
I love that inspirational message and I believe in the future of Ukraine and of Ukrainian
girls and of all the people who are working hard and are ambitious and so I have also
to ask you because of course this is an important topic about the war, I know the war started
ten years ago actually and now the invasion and the full scale war was on February 24th,
how was that day for you, how did you hear that the war started, did you believe it,
did you not believe it, what's the story of that day and how did you change as a person
in these seven months?
Like the war is the worst part of my life I think since 2022 started, so I live in Kyiv
and I think maybe on the beginning of February my mom started to tell me some things like
Lyuba, the war is going and we have to do something and please stay at home, like your
safety is the biggest part of my life, the biggest of all of my priorities and my preferences,
so you have to stay in safe places and I think before the war started it was like maybe one
week, my mom decided to make a little journey to Kyiv, I thought it was just like traveling
but no, we stayed in Kyiv for maybe two months and when I was in Kyiv, so I remember that
I woke up at 8 o'clock maybe and my mom told me that Lyuba war has started and I really
didn't know what to do because like it's very scary and you feel so frustrated and
followed and the first thing I started doing it's texting to all my friends and family
members are they okay and thanks God all was great, then we lived in Finland maybe for
two months and it was I think the hardest part, I'm very close like mentally with my
dad and with my aunt and not to see them for two months was really very difficult, then
we returned to Lviv, I started volunteering, first thing that I made, I made lessons for
Ukrainians as I said and I sold a lot of, I started selling lemonades and I collect 20,000
crowns for our army, for armed forces and I am very proud of myself that I did it and
maybe in this piece of my life, in this part leadership helped me a lot because all of
my friends and family members told me that no Lyuba it's bad idea, it's a shame to
sell these lemonades, I really didn't understand why and when I started and on the first day
I collected maybe 1000 or 2000 I came home and showed them my books with money and they
were literally shocked that people that don't have any money gave it to me for my lemonade,
for my glass of lemonade and then I did it maybe for 3 or 2 weeks every day for sometimes
5 hours, sometimes more, sometimes less, I stand and of course sun was shining and it
was very very hot there but I stand there and I just the main idea of me there was that
I am doing something great, I am doing something useful for my country and I think this skill
to not give up, it came from leadership.
Thank you, I really appreciate and value what you did and do for your country and all I
can say is Slava Ukrainyi.
Heroin Slava.
Thank you and I really love your competence in the English language and as an English
language tutor, imagine there are other girls your age who want to improve their English
but feel the education at school for English is not so perfect, not so great and they feel
a bit shy about speaking it.
How would you recommend they study English at home in order to improve it to be better?
Is it about YouTube videos and Netflix?
Is it some books and resources?
What do you recommend?
Yeah, so my English isn't very clear, sometimes I have pauses and I start thinking but my
advice, my piece of advice is just start learning.
If you have, if you study in school, you have your books in school, you have your lessons,
you study, if you have, if it's possible for you to get some courses, it's great because
courses are literally very cool way to improve your English because tutors, like teachers
in your school, think about how to get their money and how to finish their works and they
in each way will get their money rather if like they done their work badly and about
tutors, it's their interest, they're interested in making you good at English and also my
personal advice, start teaching someone, like maybe it can be your brother, small brother
or maybe neighbor's son or maybe you will find another pupils as me, they can be younger
than you but it's great opportunity for you to just practice, to remember all words because
when you explain some topics, for example, present perfect for another person, you remember,
first of all you remember it and then this person remember it.
Of course, reading books and Netflix is great too but you have to become used to it.
Thank you so much for the recommendations and yes, teaching, taking initiative, being
a leader always has both benefits to society as well to yourself so it's a great strategy.
Thank you Luba for participating in this project, it was my honor and my privilege to interview
you to share about your life, your passions, your ambitions, your thoughts and thank you
again, I wish you safety, I wish victory for Ukraine and I wish you success in your education
and life.
Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to participate and I thank you for just taking
the interview, it was a great experience and I could just imagine about this.
