Fellowship Programme
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Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
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To save. To support. To promote. With these three ideas in mind Oleksii Marushchak, a junior researcher at the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and a co-founder of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, applied for the EaP Civil Society Fellowship in spring 2023.
“My main motivation is to help Ukrainian biologists that suffered from the war to save and publish as much data collected by them during their scientific career as possible… In most cases such information remains not published and may be lost forever due to physical destruction… If we teach scientists to work through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility this will be a great contribution to nature conservation in our country”, said Oleksii in his fellowship application.
Oleksii’s application, as well as his profile, stood out from almost 200 concept notes the EaP Civil Society Facility received within that call. Only 28 at that time, he already had been hands-on engaged in protection of nature and biodiversity of Ukraine for good 10 years, both as a scientist authoring more than 170 scientific works, and as an activist, working on the projects to develop Emerald Network and to promote open biodiversity data in Ukraine.
“Biologists become civil society activists when they want to see the results of their knowledge here and now”, explains Oleksii. His journey began at the end of 2014, when he, a bachelor student at the ESC “Institute of Biology” of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, joined his first project organised by the Nature Conservation Unit as a volunteer. Together with his fellow students, Oleksii traveled to the national parks to help the park managers with daily tasks – and to collect some first-hand data. He remembers that at the end of one of his trips he was approached by a park officer with a request to share his observations of the local amphibians. “I met some amazing professionals in those trips, and communicating with them was very interesting to me as a student; and then you see that your small report did help a national park in its works”, says Oleksii.
Within another volunteer project in 2016 Oleksii found his niche in science and activism – biodiversity data and GIS (Geoinformation System) modelling. “I was given a huge dataset in an excel sheet, some dozens of thousands of records of rare plants and position data,” remembers Oleksii. “I spent a month matching descriptions with finds locations in Donetsk oblast. A couple of years later an atlas of rare plants of Donetsk Oblast was published, with my name as its co-author.” Today he uses biodiversity data to develop scenarios for preserving and managing wildlife.
In 2018 Oleksii co-founded the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group (UNCG) that now unites more than 50 nature conservation professionals and activists from all over Ukraine. The organisation is a leader in the field of protected areas and contributed to the establishment of 75% of the protected areas created in Ukraine over the past 10 years.
At UNCG Oleksii mostly works on biodiversity data managing and ecological education projects, such as promoting iNaturalist, an app that helps users to identify found animals and plants, and to record the finds into the international biodiversity database. However, he and his colleagues are happy to help those interested in implementing their own projects, from collecting data, evaluating environmental impact, researching a territory and identifying rare species, to training in any nature conservation aspect. Thus, in 2023 the UNCG experts helped Studenukivska hromada create one of regional landscape parks in Kyiv oblast. The CSO also closely worked with the Environment. People. Law organisation to prevent the construction of a wind farm in Polonyna Borzhava, a montane meadow in the Northeastern Carpathians.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Oleksii has been helping other scientists, environmentalists and other enthusiasts to save the data on registrations of biodiversity, which can be destroyed by the war. Thanks to him and his colleagues, more than 350,000 of such records were saved, digitalized and published, therefore becoming available for use of scientific community worldwide, and his Fellowship project, ‘Saving Biodiversity Data in Wartime’, has significantly contributed to the process.
Oleksii is modest when he sums up his achievements, “We managed to save some important biodiversity data. We supported the scientists and motivated them to keep their work. And we draw people’s attention to the problems of preserving biodiversity in Ukraine.” However, numbers do not lie. 10+ scientists trained within his project prepared and published 12 datasets on the GBIF platform, having saved more than 20,000 primary biodiversity records for international science, with 20% of the data coming from the occupied or de-occupied territories that suffered from military operations the most. Data from the datasets published within the fellowship project have already been used in 3 international scientific articles. Awareness raising and how-to materials created within the project reached almost 268,000 persons motivating new people to contribute their finds to the GBIF, iNaturalist and other open databases, thus expanding the public knowledge on the state of biodiversity and helping scientists and environmentalists to do their job more effectively and cover much bigger areas that are less accessible in wartimes.
When asked if he had any doubts about saving biodiversity in the middle of the war, Oleksii shrugs his shoulders. As an environmental activist with 10+ years of experience, he knows there is “never the right time when it comes to nature conservation projects”. And as a scientist, he knows that in the next years, these data will be used to assess and mitigate the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine. “The sooner the world will help us to oust the [Russian] invaders, the sooner we will be able to help our nature.”
| Country | Ukraine |
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Ketevan Tvildiani’s first degree was in English language and literature, but her interest in understanding the concept of social justice and the everyday life of people in her community drove her to take a Masters course at Batumi University in Sociology. The Masters course developed her skills for undertaking social research and included a sojourn at the University of Salzburg, which was Ketevan’s first experience with the Erasmus+ programme and provided her with insights not only into lifestyles and values of the EU, but helped her to ‘think globally’.
“Previously I had grown up in the relatively small city of Batumi, and had fairly blinkered small city attitudes. Being in Salzburg I enjoyed a great feeling of freedom and openness. The fact that the EU has no internal borders is conceptually so powerful”.
After graduation Ketevan was delighted to secure a position with the British Council in Georgia. Her work with the Council enabled Ketevan to see how activities relating to art and culture can be effectively used to support social development. In particular, a project which she was involved in in 2018, ‘Unlimited – Making the Right Moves’, provided an eye-opening experience of how communities in UK approach the practicalities of supporting inclusivity. The project was a platform for demonstrating how young people in Georgia with disability could engage with dance and all aspects of dance performance, alongside able-bodied youth. The project showed that with the right kind of planning, suitable infrastructure, and an open-minded attitude, the world of dance could be wholly inclusive. The experience was highly motivation for Ketevan and ultimately led her to designing her fellowship project.
The “Fostering Engagement of Youth with Disabilities in Arts and Culture” fellowship project, implemented during 2023 and early 2024, represented a critical step towards advancing the rights and opportunities of youth with disabilities in Georgia’s cultural landscape. Ketevan achieved this primarily through participatory research and subsequent publication of a report examining the challenges for inclusive policies and practices in Georgia. Alongside the report, Ketevan undertook a range of communication activities, such as creating four ‘motivational’ videos and facilitating formal workshops and a roundtable to advocate the recommendations of the report in order to foster a more equitable and enriching cultural environment for all individuals, regardless of ability.
As a result of the research findings, expert experience from outside UK, and the roundtable discussion, the project elicited a ground-breaking proposal from a representative of the Georgian Parliament to collaborate on a joint project aimed at enhancing accessibility within the arts and culture sector signifying a paradigm shift in governmental attitudes and commitments towards disability rights. Furthermore, a high-level participant of the project activities was moved to take action to improve accessibility to cultural events and venues. He commented that “the workshop presentation included information about ISO standards and the accessibility of websites in the UK, which I want to share with decision-makers at the office of the President of Georgia, so that our websites are accessible in the future”.
Ketevan’s fellowship has produced the first research findings in Georgia into inclusivity in the arts/culture sector and policy recommendations to ensure protection of rights of citizens with disability to participate in cultural endeavours, but she knows that there is much more to be done. As a priority next step Ketevan intends to support the foundation of some kind of permanent body at national level to promote inclusivity of the disabled into the arts and culture, with balanced representation from CSOs, cultural organisations and the public sector. The first work of such a body might be, as Ketevan suggests as an example, “to ensure principles of ‘universal design’ are regulated for, so that any new cultural venues are built with accessibility as an obligatory concern”. Ketevan hopes that she can pursue these next steps through the work of the Development and Engagement Platform for which she currently works.
| Country | Georgia |
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Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
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Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
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| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
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FANDY platform is a digital tool designed to help charities raise funds through donations and subscriptions, manage donors, and provide donation analytics. The platform includes a web builder for donation forms and fundraising pages, an admin dashboard, and management tools for donors (users donating money).
The platform’s user-friendly interface and range of features, such as the web builder and analytics dashboard, have contributed to its success. As more charities begin to use FANDY, its impact is set to grow, making it an essential tool for the fundraising community. Overall, FANDY has the potential to revolutionize the way charities raise funds and manage donations.
As a result of the Fellowship, charities in EaP countries got access to a modern-day fundraising service, which can help them raise more funds and make a greater impact in their respective fields. Additionally, this can help introduce new technologies and practices to the charity sector, which can help CSOs become more effective and efficient in their operations.
| Country | Belarus |
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Updates coming soon!
| Country | Moldova |
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Municipal councils that better serve interests of our communities are those that better fight ineffective governance and corruption locally. Therefore, the Fellowship project promotes stronger oversight role of municipal councils over the work of Mayors and their offices. The project will create incentive for local political parties to initiate oversight by supporting quality media coverage of identified local problems.
| Country | Georgia |
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In 2022, with the invasion of Ukraine, Rostyslav and his colleagues understood that they could play a positive part in serving their communities by using their new skills in organizing volunteerism and their professional expertise as educationalists. As such the ‘Inspiration Café’ was born and its first project was to establish an Educational Hub in Uzhhorod, in Zakarpatska oblast, which, with EU funding, was able to provide a safe, learning environment for more than 500 children displaced by the war. From the experience of being part of the Educational Hub and from facing the challenges of how to support and grow a community organization, Rostyslav realized how important it was for community initiatives, particularly those led by young activists, to access guidance and practical support for development of strategies and resource mobilization. This was the motivation for Rostyslav to design his ‘Enroot Resilience’ project, which became the focal point of his civil society fellowship.
Through ‘Enroot Resilience’ Rostyslav has produced and published a series of mini-training videos aimed at guiding Ukrainian grassroots organisations to take their first steps in community projects. The videos have had more than 15,000 views and have been complimented with networking activities facilitated by Rostyslav. The networking events were opportunities for activists to meet up and share experiences on developing projects and finding resources. Rostyslav reflected on the success of these activities:
“Learning by doing is probably the most effective way to build capacity for community projects, but learning from the practical experience of others is extremely important. I have learnt so much from listening to the testimonies of activists during our roundtable discussions”.
To conclude his fellowship project Rostyslav hosted a ‘Time for Resilience’ forum, with a mixture of more than 100 offline and online participants. The day-long event involved inputs of lots of different practitioners from civil society, including from other civil society fellows, such as Hanna Nishnindze who delivered a session on Fundraising, and was well-supported with participation from the management of the National Youth Council and local office for Erasmus+ coordination. The feedback from the forum has been excellent:
“Many of the young activists used it as a springboard for building new partnerships,” noted Rostyslav, “with others, since the forum, successfully taking on community leadership positions.”
Taking on board the lessons learned from the fellowship, the initial ‘inspiration café’ organization has now been transformed to a CSO called ‘Education 360’ and, with Rostyslav’s and his colleagues’ increased organizational capacities, the CSO has a clear strategy and annual plans. Rostyslav intends to continue to split his time between his formal school teaching duties and the activism managed through ‘Education 360’.
Watch a series of videos to help grassroots organisations to take their first steps in community projects (in Ukrainian only!):
1) The Art of Grant Writing: You will learn the key stages of writing a grant proposal and effective strategies to ensure a successful outcome.
2) Communications and Promotion for CSOs: You will learn how to increase the visibility of your organization through effective communication and promotion.
3) Forming partnerships: You will learn how to create strong partnerships to sustain and strengthen the organization.
4) Scaling: You will learn how to grow your community and distribute your products or services.
5) Project Planning: You will learn the important steps and strategies that will ensure the success of your project.
6) How to prevent emotional burnout?: You will learn how to take care of your emotional health and avoid emotional burnout.
7) How to successfully fundraise?: You will learn about the most effective methods of attracting financial resources for your organization.
| Country | Ukraine |
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| The budget development decisions | 0 |