Ardea Alba Alumni Club
"Ardea Alba" IIR Alumni Club is an officially incorporated and operating NGO, consolidating the alumni and academic staff of the Institute of International Relations of the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv (the "IIR", the "Institute"), of different programs and years of graduation.
The Club has been founded in the spring of 2010 by a group of students from the International Law faculty, who held the Club’s first informal meetings. Officially the Club has been registered as a civic organization in the summer of 2011. The charter of the Club still cherishes the names of its founding members.
The admission to the Club is restricted – candidates for membership are only accepted upon 2 recommendations of incumbent members, or upon a direct invitation from Club’s Directorate.
Club’s name "Ardea Alba" means White Egret in Latin. Egret – Ardea – is a bird inherent in Ukrainian folklore and common to Ukrainian culture and geography. It symbolizes attachment to a nest and fidelity (an allegory for the Institute). White colour – Alba – has been chosen with due regard to its heraldic characteristics. The white colour stands for Argent (heraldic metal – a tincture of silver), which symbolizes honour and candour as well as clarity, innocence and honesty.
Coincidently with its name, Club’s motto has been adopted. "Ibi Victoria Ubi Concordia", meaning “Where is the unity, there is the victory” in Latin, refers to the principles of unity and mutual support between alumni – principles, which are being cultivated by the Club and which still ensure its development and activity. The motto has paramount importance. With regard to the Institute’s history and to the conjuncture of its students and professors, the motto emphasizes: "The only thing that matters – is our shared past in the Institute’s walls. Anything else is conventionalities".
Ardea Alba is not a part of the Institute’s administrative structure and acts autonomously. As of today, the Club is the sole alumni organization which has regular members and conducts vigorous activity. Ardea Alba unites approximately 120 members from all faculties and programmes. The Directorate is the Club’s governing body.
We cultivate a spirit of fellowship and familiarity. We strengthen networks and weaken prosiness. We endorse the socialization of former and present students, assist their applications to a foreign universities, provide employment support, organize events and implement projects to enhance the academic and social prestige of the Institute. Such projects include a private meeting with the President of Georgia – Mr. Saakashvili, "9 o’clock breakfasts" – alumni joint breakfasts with remarkable persons, "Hospitality League" – a social platform of support for travelling alumni, a charitable legal library "MP Fund", presentations on education abroad jointly with grant organizations, etc.
Within the framework of the "Hospitality League", as an example, Ardea Alba provides information and other support to travelling members of the Club up to their meeting, organization of leisure, provision of adaptive assistance and other pieces of advice on their sojourn. With this regard, we have organized a network of "AA Hosts" - friends and members of the Club, who permanently or temporally reside in a country. All of them are IIR alumni and each of them has given consent to participate in Ardea Alba's "Hospitality League". As of today, the League unites Hosts in more than 15 countries and in over 30 cities around the world.
As for "9 o’clock breakfasts", we have provided students and members of the Club with the opportunity to frankly converse with Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, Lesya Orobets, Oleksandra Kuzhel, Yuriem Miroshnychenko, Vasyl Shklyar, Oleh Rybachuk, Kapranov brothers, Volodymyr Tykhyy, Yuriy Klyuchkovskyy and other remarkable individuals known both in Ukraine and elsewhere.
We safeguard old traditions and establish new ones.
Join us!
Contacts:
13 Kovalsky provulok, of. 3, Kyiv 03056, Ukraine
E-mail: info@ardeaalba.com
Тel. 097-422-93-35
Website: www.ardeaalba.com