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Ukrainian Orphanage Project

Broadcast Dates: Jan. 22, 7:30 p.m. | Jan. 25, 7:30 a.m. | Jan. 26, 4:30 a.m.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a group of University of Maryland students is hoping it will be worth big money, too. The undergraduate students started a project call Shutters 4 Scholars that is showcasing photos of children in orphanages in Ukraine to help drive donations to support the orphans’ education.

In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Dr. Gerald Suarez and student Yana Jmourko talk about Shutter 4 Scholars, a project that came out of the Smith School’s QUEST (Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams) program.

Suarez, associate dean of External Relations and director of the QUEST program, supported the group of six students from the beginning when they wanted to take on a nontraditional class project to help the Ukrainian orphans. The project was spearheaded by Jmourko, a Ukrainian-born senior engineering major, who visited the country last summer and paved the way for her group to send cameras to children in an orphanage. The group posts the children’s self-taken photos and autobiographical profiles on a Web site they created and partnered with an existing nonprofit to make sure donated funds are used to support orphans’ higher education.