Ukrainian Democratic Youth Association

Ukrainian Democratic Youth Association (Об’єднання демократичної української молоді; Obiednannia demokratychnoi ukrainskoi molodi, or ОДУМ; ODUM). A youth association in the United States of America and Canada established in 1950 in New York. The group was composed initially of the children of postwar displaced persons from Soviet Ukraine who were adherents of or sympathetic to the Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic party. It undertakes Ukrainian studies, sports, and performing-arts activities (it sponsors a number of dance, bandura, and music ensembles). With its centers of support in Ontario and the eastern United States, ODUM has a central committee and separate structures for each side of the border. It sponsored (from 1951) the monthly journal Moloda Ukraïna (Toronto) and has had pages in the Ukrainian-American newspapers Ukraïns’ki visti and Ukraïns’ke zhyttia (Chicago). It also owns summer resorts in Acton, New Jersey, and London, Ontario, that are commonly used for summer camps and performing-arts workshops. ODUM has a total membership (1980) of approximately 1,000. It published a commemorative almanac in 1965.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]