“They took Crimea, and the war started. I naturally got the draft letter. I rode up to the drafting center in my BMW Z3, and just said, “I’m ready to serve! Send me out!” It was pretty emotional,” says Vasyl. He received...
During the years after the Euromaidan Revolution, a powerful volunteer movement formed in Ukraine. Volunteers helped the army, the reform process, and fight against corruption, and took part in other important changes. However, there are...
FROM SPRING TO WINTER – WITH HOE AND PICKAXE IN HANDS In spring, Vasyl sets out early in the morning, swinging his pick-axe to dig up the rocky soil, sometimes cluttered with remnants of concrete and asphalt. He removes bushes and...
Education reform is not the number one priority for countries which undergo transformations after revolutions. However, education is a field capable of changing generations which come after. Nowadays, Ukrainian education is in trouble. The...
/Photos: Olena Makarenko Read more: Ukrainians celebrate 26th anniversary of Independence | Photos Pentagon chief in Kyiv: defensive weapons are not provocative unless you’re an aggressor Divisions from eight NATO countries attend...
353 413 euros and 69 cents. This is the sum that has passed through the accounts of NGO Vaba Ukraina (Free Ukraine) since the organization was founded exactly three years ago, on 11 August 2014. It includes both private donations...
During our interview, Canberk Bal, a young man from Turkey, is wearing a vyshyvanka – a Ukrainian national embroidered shirt. Canberk has just come back from the west-Ukrainian city of Lviv where he worked as a volunteer tutor...
I met Julia in 2016, when being a volunteer in the summer peace camp for Ukrainian kids who either came from the frontline areas of Donbas or had been internally displaced persons. In this camp, the participants not only relaxed but also...
The war in Ukraine is no longer regularly reported in western media; when it is, the focus is generally on military activity or the breaking of the Minsk agreements. What is often neglected is the network of civil society volunteers that...
When the de-faсto war in eastern Ukraine only started, thousands of people made the decision to go to the frontline as volunteer soldiers. They were supported by another army – civil volunteers who provided them with food, clothes, and...
On 28 September 2017, Ukraine’s new law on education entered into force. Called to advance Ukraine’s badly needed education reform, it has been praised for introducing the concept of competence-orientation and giving schools...
