EU4Youth: EU-funded project supports internally displaced persons and youth entrepreneurs in Ukraine

The ‘EU4Youth Phase III Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship’ programme has presented the first results of its ‘Support for internally displaced persons and youth entrepreneurs’ project, launched under previously reallocated support for addressing war-related needs of Ukraine.

This project, with a budget of over €307,000, focuses on initiatives that directly contribute to building the resilience and capacity of young people to respond to the consequences of the Russian war against Ukraine. It covers ten regions of Ukraine, including Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Odesa, Cherkasy, ​​Lviv, and Chernivtsi.

The project provides grants to non-profit organisations that support young entrepreneurs and employment of internally displaced young people, help ex-combatants reintegrate into social life, support young people confronted with direct violence or other psychological distress, and engage young people in humanitarian and other civilian community support.

The project has already selected 30 winners out of 108 participants to receive grants for business recovery. A chatbot for entrepreneurial cooperation has been created and a website for entrepreneurs has been developed. In addition, significant progress has already been made in career counselling: 577 people from different regions of Ukraine have received career counselling services.

Cooperation has already been established with a number of partners in the retraining programme. For example, the Lviv Sewing Factory has provided an opportunity for 20 people to develop skills in sewing overalls for the Ministry of Emergency Situations, communal services and the military; a turbo-mechanical foundry is taking up to 30 people for training and further employment with accommodation and meals; and in total, 62 people have been successfully employed under the project and have already started work in their new location.The project is implemented by the ‘SpivDiia’ Charity Fund.