Ukraine Archives - Page 5 of 9 - Fellows eapcivilsociety.eu

HOMECOMING: How Ukrainian Refugees and IDPs Can Help their Communities to Change for the Better

Fellowship Summary: Researching opinions from IDPs and refugees about aspects of their temporary host communities that they would advocate could guide change in the home communities in Ukraine. The research will lead to the promotion of a report on new policies for local development in post-war communities.

Country	Ukraine
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‘uLocal’ IDPs Assistance Platform for Legal and Psychological Support

Fellowship Summary: Development of a digital platform that will facilitate IDPs and those willing to offer assistance to IDPs (in terms of psychological support, legal counselling, and other services) to post requests and opportunities, enabling a volunteer-based matching of services with demands of IDPs.

Anton Bocharov’s Fellowship project, uLocal, is a digital platform created to support Ukraine’s growing population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) by connecting them with verified legal and psychological experts offering free or discounted services.

Launched in 2023, uLocal acts as a smart matchmaking system. IDPs can search a growing database of professionals – currently 24 lawyers and 14 psychologists – filtering by specialty, service type, and location. Each expert profile includes ratings and reviews, allowing users to make informed choices. Once matched, users can securely message the professional and leave feedback afterward. The platform also features a built-in discount system to ensure services remain affordable.

In its first three months, uLocal attracted 965 visitors, nearly 150 registered users, and helped resolve 25 individual cases – mostly related to legal questions about social benefits, housing, and financial assistance. With each resolved request, uLocal not only helps IDPs navigate an unfamiliar system but also reaffirms their right to support and dignity in the face of displacement.

Country	Ukraine
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Support of Chernihiv CSOs and Activists to Generate Funds to Help the Region

Fellowship Summary: Supporting and building capacities of local CSOs for fundraising, through coaching and a digital guide, and facilitating strengthened cooperation between CSOs and local authorities for post-war Chernihiv.

Country	Ukraine
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Restoration of Environment Affected by Military Actions

Fellowship Summary: Raising awareness among civil society representatives, professional and future ecologists, environmental law specialists, public activists, representatives of city and state authorities working in the environmental field about the impact of military aggression on the environment, with a focus on the Holosiivskyi National Park.

Country	Ukraine
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Effective Fundraising – through an Individual Approach

Fellowship Summary: Developing and rolling-out a fund-raising capacity building programme for community organisations in the Vinnytsia region.

Country	Ukraine
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Stronger Network of CSOs Responding to Needs of IDPs in Western Regions of Ukraine

Fellowship Summary: Establish a pool of activists in the Lviv region, through a ToT (Training-of-Trainers) and coaching, who will support local campaigns and advocacy of grassroots CSOs to address local level corruption.

“Civic activism is an opportunity to give back to society, something you often cannot fully do in your professional work”, says Vitalii Razik, 2021 EaP Civil Society Fellow from Lviv, Ukraine, who has been combining a successful legal practice with civic work for the past 23 years.

Civic activism for Vitalii started when he and his fellows at Ivan Franko National University established the Association of Law Students in 1995. Shortly after his graduation, Vitalii started working with Lviv-based Law and Democracy Foundation, first as a pro bono lawyer and since 2010 as director of the Foundation. Soon Vitalii realized that providing legal consultations to citizens was not enough, as most problems stemmed from more systematic faults of the Ukrainian legislation and practice. Thus, the Foundation expanded its activities, adding to its mandate human rights protection, access to justice, legal and court reforms, monitoring of the penitentiary system and its reform, preventing and counteracting corruption.

Had it not been for an event in 2010 that changed everything, the Foundation would have been working today the same way as hundreds of other smaller-scale CSOs in Ukraine. But in 2010 the Foundation’s lawyers helped Ivan Samardak from Lviv to win his case against Ukraine at the European Court of Human Rights. It was a successful story with plenty of lessons learnt, and Vitalii wanted to share their experience with lawyers in other regions, who dealt with similar cases and problems.

“Working with civil society organisations was the most efficient way of sharing this important information”, recollects Vitalii. For the Foundation, it was the first action focused on experience sharing. “We established good communication with the organisations, and realised that acting as a network benefits every organisation, as we can mutually share our best practices, and then apply and further distribute them in our regions, thus acting as catalysts.”

In 2012 the first twelve human rights CSOs – partners of the Foundation – signed a memorandum of cooperation and established a network to coordinate human rights activities and disseminate experience to strengthen Ukrainian civil society and CSOs. Today, the Network of Human Rights NGOs has about 20 active member CSOs from 8 Ukrainian oblasts, “Cooperation between CSOs creates a more effective civil society, opportunities to share experience, helps to solve problems and engage communities to address systematic problems.”

In 2018 the Foundation co-founded another network, Toloka Coalition of Regional Initiatives. Three years later, in 2021 Vitalii received the EaP Civil Society Fellowship award, with a project idea to assist and inspire local CSOs, first of all members of the two Foundation’s networks, in preventing corruption at the grassroots level. He was about to start his fellowship when Russia commenced the full-scale war in Ukraine. Corruption did not disappear, but priorities changed.

Among other numerous challenges, Ukraine had to deal with the refugee crises unprecedented in recent history. People were coming to western Ukraine in the thousands, and needed all kinds of assistance: humanitarian, informational, legal, psychological. “Before the government managed to stabilise the system to make it functional, there was no one except civil society to provide support to internally displaced Ukrainians,” says Vitalii. Many of those CSOs had little or no experience of working with IDPs, and Vitalii saw an immediate need to help these organisations adapt their activities and practices to the realities and needs of war.

Vitalii’s project included several components: training civil society activists in providing legal and psychological support to IDPs, media outreach and advocating for IDPs’ issues at local level, consulting CSOs on legal issues, e.g., related with martial law, and on psychological aspects of CSOs’ work in crisis, running awareness and information campaigns, etc. “Before providing much needed help to others, the organisations needed to be trained in how to do that properly,” says Vitalii. It was inspiring to see that activists who had come to the trainings feeling lost found the focus and started supporting IDPs successfully and tackling other urgent problems.

His approach proved its effectiveness: by the end of the Fellowship project in October 2022, 17 participating CSOs reported they had provided support to over 8,000 IDPs, and the number of beneficiaries was increasing. Vitalii explains, “If I had decided to help IDPs directly, I would have been able to help only very few. This approach allowed me to help thousands.”

The network of CSOs supporting IDPs in Western Ukraine established within the Fellowship project continues working today, with members and individual activists keeping in touch and helping each other when needed.

“In my opinion, civic and charity organisations are the basis of civil society, and we must keep working on enabling them to mature as after our victory [in the war] civil society will become the driver of Ukraine’s reconstruction and development processes on its road to further European integration.”

Country	Ukraine
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Mentoring for Teachers in Rural Communities

Fellowship Summary: Develop and pilot a methodology and mechanism for mentoring school teachers in Boratyn (Volyn region of Ukraine) and then support association to adopt and promote, with adaptations for the war context.

Country	Ukraine
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Open Dialogues: How to Build Peace during Wartime

Fellowship Summary: Identifying good practices in open dialogue for peace-building and social cohesion, piloting a training, then scaling up with good practices from Finland/Sweden and youth in Ukraine.

Yuliya’s Fellowship project was aimed at peacebuilding and integration, both in Ukraine and EU countries. The project encompassed field research, the development of youth-friendly methods for involving young IDPs (internally displaced persons) and refugees, and the creation of a Facilitation kit for conducting dialogue in peaceful communities.

The Fellowship project allowed Yulia to study institutions working on peacebuilding and youth involvement in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. She analyzed practices from 20 institutions and was involved in stakeholder talks with 28 youth workers and local stakeholders from Ukraine and Finland, sharing their experiences and ideas on youth involvement in peacebuilding and integration. Methodologies for inclusive youth participation were designed based on user experiences and good practices and piloted through dialogue events with over 115 young people in Ukraine and Finland.

As a final product, Yulia and her colleagues from the Youth Organization STAN network published a Facilitation Kit for Peace Dialogue with Youth. This publication, available in paper and PDF format in English and Ukrainian, serves as a practical tool for youth workers (facilitation kit free to print and use is available on STAN website here in English and here in Ukrainian). It has already been presented in four countries, with participants from 11 different CSOs representing at least seven countries.

Direct beneficiaries of the project include young people of Ukrainian origin, young refugees, and IDPs, as well as youth workers in Ukraine who organized various activities for over 2,000 young IDPs in Volyn, Zakarpatia, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

Country	Ukraine
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Association of Culture

Fellowship Summary: To strengthen the networking of CSOs and activists in the cultural sector in Vinnytsia (Ukraine) through coordinated responses to the needs of IDPs, including displaced artists. Cultural activists will contribute to distributing emergency relief and address stress issues through cultural events and art therapy.

Bohdan Kutsenko’s fellowship project, Association of Culture, aimed to strengthen solidarity among cultural actors – artists, managers, and activists – during the ongoing war in Ukraine. The initiative was born from the need to address the humanitarian crisis by harnessing the power of culture to support displaced persons (IDPs) and promote solidarity within the cultural sector.

The project began by fostering cooperation among stakeholders in Vinnytsia, focusing on identifying the needs of local and displaced artists. This collaboration resulted in the creation of the Association of Culture (KUT), a platform for mobilizing artists and volunteers to provide direct aid to IDPs. The team developed a framework for action, which included the distribution of humanitarian aid, art therapy programs, and the organization of cultural events aimed at healing the community.

The second phase saw the legal registration of the association and the implementation of its action plan, which involved hosting public events, art exhibitions, and creative workshops. Through its initiatives, KUT offered psychological support via art and culture, helped integrate displaced artists into the local scene, and provided temporary accommodation to over 400 people.

Through social media campaigns, podcasts, and public engagements, the project raised awareness about the critical role of culture in times of crisis. Bohdan’s project not only helped sustain cultural identity in the face of war but also united artists and the wider community in a shared mission of resilience and recovery.

Country	Ukraine
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Skills Gaps of Ukrainian Youth in the Digital Era: Through the Lens of the War in Ukraine

Fellowship Summary: Research and draft a report assessing skill gaps of young people in Ukraine in terms of their employability in post-war, and facilitate debate and awareness among CSOs/student groups to the findings.

Implemented by Hanna Harus, this Fellowship project tackled the pressing issue of youth unemployment in Ukraine, exacerbated by the ongoing war. The initiative focused on identifying the skills gaps that hinder Ukrainian youth in their job search and career development, both in Ukraine and abroad. With the support of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship Programme, Hanna conducted a comprehensive social survey to understand the obstacles faced by young people and provide actionable solutions.

The project began with a social survey designed by a professional sociologist, conducted between November and December 2022. A total of 391 respondents aged 18-29, hailing from diverse regions of Ukraine, participated. The survey assessed their levels of digital literacy, job search abilities, technical competencies, and soft skills, while also identifying systemic barriers such as sexism, ageism, lack of job-specific knowledge, and the war’s impact on employability. The survey was designed as an interactive test, allowing participants to evaluate their skills and receive personalized feedback. At the end of the survey, all participants received a checklist titled “How to Get a Job Without Experience,” equipping them with practical steps to enhance their employability. The survey also served as a platform for collecting qualitative insights on the challenges Ukrainian youth face, which included discrimination, misinformation about vacancies, and employers’ reluctance to hire individuals from war-affected areas.

Download the report “Skills Gaps of Ukrainian Youth in the Digital Era: Through the Lens of War in Ukraine” in Ukrainian.

Based on the survey findings, Hanna Harus collaborated with experts to create a series of infographics and training materials recommending the top skills required for employment and efficient ways to acquire them. To further engage participants, the project offered career consultations with Hanna Harus and Dr. Stephane Bordas, a globally renowned professor in computational mechanics and data science. A randomized lottery allowed two participants to win personalized consultations, while almost 300 survey respondents expressed interest in similar career guidance. During the consultations, participants received tailored advice on building their career strategy, enhancing their skills, and leveraging job experiences to advance professionally.

By leveraging the survey insights, expert consultations, and outreach campaigns, the project equipped Ukrainian youth with the tools to bridge their skills gaps and become more competitive in the modern job market. The fellowship’s outcomes—available online for a wide audience—offer sustainable guidance for career development, empowering young people to overcome challenges and build successful careers in a rapidly changing environment.

Country	Ukraine
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