Young Minds: Alik Volkov (Project Unity)

The saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ may be true, but the true value of each word itself is incredible, especially when handwritten.

Alik Volkov, co-founder of ‘Project Unity’ (with Tami Sorovaiski), knows this better than anyone.

Project Unity is a leadership initiative non-profit with the goal to "positively impact individuals of many walks of life during tough times in their lives."

Starting only five months ago, (officially launched at the end of June) Project Unity is currently reaching approximately two thousand people. They have an outreach team and ambassadors in; Canada, Saskatchewan, Georgia (America), England, and India.

But how did all this come about? It all started with the two founders themselves, before the idea of a non-profit in their minds.

In January 2017, Alik started having a confidence problem. “At first it was nothing big,” Alik explains. “But after a while it started getting really bad. I had trouble asking my friends or even my brother for advice.”

“I don’t understand why.” Alik continues, explaining how he didn’t even want to look at himself in the mirror. "I had a problem of asking others for workout advice because I was too scared, I always felt embarrassed."

“I wanted to stop existing, just disappear, all because I didn’t speak about my problem. And the big problem is that no one convinced me to talk to someone.” Alik says.

Months before all of the self doubt began, his friend Tami gave him a letter, handwritten. She explained he should only open it at a low point, when he really needed it.

“When I got to that point, I opened it. What I opened inside was absolutely beautiful, as if she knew it was gonna happen.” Recalls Alik.

The letter contained all the fun times they had at summer camp the year before, and reminded Alik that ‘there is always happy times and sad times’, and that he was not alone.

“It was really eye opening for me.”

After getting that letter, Alik felt good enough to open up to one of his friends, who “immediately jumped to help me. It was really important to him, even if it seemed weird to others.”

Alik wanted to share his stories, so he wrote an article for a website called Hello Fears, ‘Courage is Realizing People Do Care’.

Hello fears is ‘a website created by a woman whose goal is to inspire people to step out of their comfort zone. I met her, she’s a fantastic woman.’ Alik recalls, explaining how he met her at the Count Me In Leadership Summit.

“After I wrote and published that article, that’s when my friend Tami”, who wrote him the letter “messaged me and said ‘Alik, we should do something about it’.”

Alik tells the simple words of how it started. “Let’s start a movement.” “How?” “We’ll figure it out.”

A week later, Alik and Tami met at a Tim Hortons. “Okay, let’s try something. Do stuff.”

And there, Project Unity came to fruition.

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How did Project Unity reach so far?

It was just through people they met personally, at the Count Me In Leadership Summit (where he met the woman who runs Hello Fears). “There we met a bunch of people” Tami and Alik brought up their idea to their fellow leaders. “They were straight on board and wanted to help.”

That’s how they are spreading the movement to other people.

“Our goal is to reach the 6th person. One person tells, that person tells someone else. Once its reached the sixth, it’s really well known.”

What do you think makes writing physical letters so much more connecting?

“Handwritten letters are much more personal than typing something on the phone or computer, a text or email. If you write something with your hand on a piece of paper, it shows you put actual effort into something. You can’t just backspace something, you actually have to plan it out...be careful. Hand written letters have actually been proven in a study that they are far more impactful.”

Alik also wants to conduct a study at his school, and is currently working on research.

He explains there was a research project done at Kent State University by Dr. Toepfer.

Dr. Toepfer had his students write letters to their friends, to see the impact it would have on their lives. Apparently, their level of happiness was higher, as was their satisfaction with life, increasing with each letter.

“Those aren’t like the letters we write,” Alik explains how the letters in that study had been simply to communicate more personally with friends. “But, I think the fact that’s it’s handwritten...you’re not writing out of gratitude, but just to genuinely help someone.”

How can people get involved?

It’s “as simple as sitting down, taking a moment, and writing a letter to your friend. Anyone you care about.”

“I do, every December, as Christmas gifts” he explains how he writes letters to his friends. “

Last Christmas (before the movement started), Alik was already writing letters. He wrote thirty letters, saying ‘don’t open until Christmas’ in the main envelope, which wished them a Merry Christmas. Inside that, was another envelope, that said ‘open at a low point in life.’

“It was double the writing” Alik humors “but worth it.”

Alik was hoping the letters would be impactful, but didn’t expect what happened next.

One night, a few months after the letters were given out, he got a call from a girl he knew. She was about to commit suicide, and was writing goodbye letters. When she got to Aliks letter, she stopped and recalled what he sent her. She called and explained this stopped her from committing suicide.

“I freaked out. I realized how powerful a letter could be.” Alik explains its what drove him and his friends to really start the movement. “I can't stop working on this movement for everyone. It has to continue. It’s not just about me, but everyone who is impacted.”

Alik has been doing research, studying the rate of loneliness in Canada. “[It] is so important... I read something recently, like between 25-30% of Canadians are lonely according to that study. Loneliness means less people to talk to, a higher rate of depression. That’s what we’re trying to counter, have people feel they belong to a community.”

This year Alik has already started writing his holiday gifts, and has five letters done so far.

Do you have any advice for people who want to start something to positively impact a community, but don’t know how?

“I think that to start, you have to ask yourself why you want to do it. To achieve fame and satisfy your ego, or mainly to impact people.”

Alik explains the way the movement makes him feel happy. “Of course it feels good to do it, but it can’t be the only reason to do it. If positively impacting people is why you want to do it, that’s a good enough reason to do it.”

Some advice from Alik, when starting a movement like this;

.Don't do it alone. - “Get trustworthy people” who will have the same passion as you.

As well, “don’t give up midway. You’ll never know what kind of impact you could have had.”

How to start? It can happen as simply as meeting at a Tim Horton's and google.

When Alik and Tami met at Tim Horton's to start the project, they had to google how to start a non-profit. They wrote down a mission statement and paragraphs of information. The first document was the most basic, point form word doc.

“That’s all we started with, and I kept this document ‘cause it’s too funny, we wrote a bunch of ideas.” He lists off a few of the physical purchases they would need to buy, including pens and papers and envelopes. “Nothing important on it now besides mission statement. The beginning is gonna be weird, have fun with it, don’t take it so seriously, have a good time.”

Project Unity is now reaching thousands of people, thanks to Alik and Tammi, “because that letter really changed my life. It was one page.”

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but one page of words can start a movement, and change a life.

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Thank you to Alik Volkov for an interview on this incredible journey.

Article written by Katherine Ross.

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Read Alik's article, Courage Is Realizing People Do Care: https://www.hellofears.com/stories/96zn7cvnl7rkwm8j25wlqbixjrwdzf

Get Involved with Project Unity!

Email: projectunitymovement@gmail.com

Project Unity, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectunitymovement/

Project Unity, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectunitymovement/

#Impact #Empowerment #YoungMinds