The Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine has launched a nationwide communication campaign, ‘Together We Act’, to support civil society and independent media. The campaign aims to demonstrate the role and importance of CSOs and the media for society and public institutions, and to showcase the opportunities for EU support.

Since the beginning of the great war, the EU’s support for CSOs and free media has grown significantly. According to Katarina Mathernova, in 2022 alone, the EU provided EUR 60 million worth of support -three times more than before. In particular, about 800 grants were awarded to local civil society organisations working in various fields.

The new communication campaign, its rationale and goals were also discussed in an interview with Kateryna Mathernova for 1+1.

Katarina Mathernova called the developed civil society “Ukraine’s great advantage”.

The European Union has always supported them, including as partners in Ukraine’s progress towards European integration. Here are some of the statistics released on the occasion of the launch of the ‘Together We Act’ campaign.

As of the first quarter of 2024, there were 63 grant projects to support CSOs in Ukraine with total EU funding of over EUR 104 million. The grant projects implemented 1984 sub-grant projects, and another 346 sub-grants were implemented through the regional grants mechanism.

Over the past few years, more than 150 media outlets of various levels have received financial assistance from the EU in the amount of more than EUR 15 million. For example, the EU supports Ukraine’s national broadcaster Suspilne and its flagship media literacy initiatives.

The all-Ukrainian communication campaign “Together We Act” will include awareness raising, learning and public activities with various interactive elements, both online and offline.

The first of these was the EuroSummit of CSOs held in Kyiv on May 9. Experts, civic activists, representatives of the Ukrainian authorities and partners from the European Union worked out a common direction for Ukraine’s EU membership.

In April, Ukrayinska Pravda published the entries of the three essay contest winners. The contest was organised by the Delegation of the European Union to mark the 10th anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity and the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the EU. More than 140 young people competed in the contest.

Participants submitted their entries in January, and the finalists were selected in February, with the award ceremony that took place in March. The publication of the best essays in Ukrayinska Pravda was the concluding stage of the campaign.

In their essays, the finalists reflected on the significance of the Revolution of Dignity for the future of the country, the importance of European values for Ukrainian society and its ability to fight for the very existence of its own state.

In her essay, Shekurie Ramazanova, 21, recalls the 2013- 2014 events, the Euromaidan-Crimea rallies, armed clashes, the seizure of administrative buildings, the occupation of the peninsula, the fake referendum and the mass exodus of people.

Vladyslav Satsiuk, 22, from Kyiv, emphasises the role of European values in his work.

More than 80 activities involving about 1 700 inhabitants of Kamianske in Dnipro region were delivered by the resilience centre called ‘Place of Power.’ And this is even before the centre was officially opened in April this year.

The initiative to deploy a number of resilience centres called ‘Place of Power’ is being jointly implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and funded by the EU under the EU4Recovery – Empowering Communities in Ukraine. It is being implemented directly on the ground by the Fishermen’s Club CSO and the Living Heart Charitable Foundation.

The focus of a number of activities is evidenced by their names: ‘(No) Small Things in Relationships’, ‘Resilience 2.0’, art therapy sessions with the centre’s therapist, and ‘Energy of Your Future’ teenage camps. These are personal development trainings intended to improve various aspects of people’s lives and their mental, emotional, social, intellectual, professional and spiritual development. Some of the sessions seek to raise awareness on toxic relationships and mental violence, or to help participants better understand them selves, their goals and opportunities.

In the coming months, resilience centres will be launched in Kremenchuk, Poltava region and Nizhyn, Chernihiv region.

In April, analysts from the Chernihiv-based CSO Agency for Municipal Initiatives (AMI) analysed 13 social infrastructure facilities in the city to determine the risks posed to their reconstruction. These include schools, courthouses, libraries, and the music and drama theatre that were damaged due to Russian aggression.

All of the facilities received fairly good scores, so the risks to their recovery are currently ‘low’.

The organisation is conducting this monitoring with a grant received under the EU-funded project ‘Monitoring Recovery Costs.’ It is being implemented by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, the Centre for Economic Strategy, and the Technologies of Progress CSO.

When examining facilities for risks to reconstruction, the AMI takes into account a number of factors such as the total value of the facilities, funding sources, type of reconstruction required, public disclosure of documentation, recon- struction timeframes, monitoring and reporting systems, communication with citizens and the involvement of independent experts. A total of 17 criteria are applied. Each of them has its own score, and the organisation calculates the total score after adding them up.

For example, the drama theatre damaged by a Russian missile last year (on photo) scored 83 points at this stage, while the ‘high’ risk to reconstruction starts at 109.

The organisation has also developed datasheets for each of the reconstruction sites it is studying. They are available on the Big Recovery Portal.

At the end of April, the Facebook page of the Tulchyn municipal community in Vinnytsia Oblast conducted a survey among its residents to improve household waste management practices. The local authorities were interested in the attitude of Tulchyn inhabitants to cooperation with the utility company Tulchynko- munservis and their intention or desire to conclude contracts for waste removal, people’s willingness to pay for such ser- vices, readiness for separate waste collection in households, and more.

This is how the project ‘Improving Waste Management Pro- cesses in the Tulchyn Municipal Community Following the Ex- perience of Gmina Nakło nad Notecią’ began, for which the community received a grant from the International Solidarity Fund under the U-LEAD with Europe Programme.

Raising residents’ awareness of proper waste management is one of the key factors in solving the problem. Among other things, the project aims to introduce separate waste collection.

The community intends to remedy the situation, and contain- ers for separate waste collection will be purchased as part of the project. A large-scale waste management communication campaign will also be conducted on all possible information resources and in schools.

At the same time, the project also includes the installation of six surveillance cameras to monitor and record improper waste management and impose fines.

The Tulchyn community received funding for the project as a result of winning the Good Governance -Projects 2023 mi- crogrant call for proposals held by the International Solidarity Fund. It was available to 25 municipalities, whose representa- tives had completed a seven-week internship in Poland last year. Natalia Hnatenko, the Tulchyn project manager, interned in the Nakło nad Notecią Commune, and this experience will now be shared.

Throughout April, presentations of the EU-funded project ‘Family for Every Child: Development of Family-based Foster Care’ were held in the regions. It involves 184 communities from 21 regions. In total, 600 communities applied for the call, which demonstrates a great interest in family-based foster care.

The project is being implemented by UNICEF, Partnership for Every Child, Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, Coordination Centre for the Development of Family Upbringing and Childcare and the National Social Service of Ukraine.

The main criteria for selecting communities were their need for foster care, their capacity to develop foster care and the security situation. They also considered the total number of children in the community and the number of children living in temporary institutional care facilities, the staffing of services for children and the number of social workers.

Family-based care is a professional service that provides temporary care, upbringing and rehabilitation of a child in the family of a foster carer for the period of overcoming difficult life circumstances by the child and his/her parents.

The Medzhybizh community in Khmelnytskyi region is one of those selected to implement the project. Its leader, Oleksandr Tkach, took part in the presentation meeting in Khmelnytskyi. He says that there are approximately 30 families in the community with children in need of protection.

The community leader expects that participation in the project will also help train professionals who will be able to work with both children and families in difficult life circumstances.

The project will continue to work with communities until July 2025. During this time, it is planned to create 250 new foster families. The project also expects an increase in the number of children who will return to their biological families or be placed in family-based care after foster care.

The concept of ‘news deserts’ originated in the United States and refers to areas where people do not receive sufficient reliable information about local issues and developments. The reason for this is problems with local media. To identify such ‘deserts’ in Ukraine, the Media Development Foundation (MDF), with the financial support from the EU, researched 11 Ukrainian regions.

The research methodology is based on the evaluation of media activities based on eight criteria. These include proper information about civic initiatives and public services, local policies and governance, education and transport, economic development and the environment.

The 11 regions analysed by MDF, including the temporarily occupied ones, consist of 68 districts and the city of Kyiv. In total, the researchers found that there are 879 newsrooms operating in these regions. On average, there are 60-70 operating media outlets per region. However, of these, 10 or fewer can be called independent by MDF based on the criteria used for the analysis.

In April, the research team presented the findings in the form of interactive maps. The districts of the regions were divided into ‘healthy,’ ‘partially healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’.

The research revealed a number of unusual phenomena. For example, Bila Tserkva district in Kyiv region is ‘unhealthy’, while Shostka district in Sumy region or Kupiansk district in Kharkiv region are ‘healthy’ even though they all suffer from Russian aggression and are in a difficult security situation.

Maksym contends that it is impossible to determine the exact causes for this phenomenon -one can only speculate.

Since the outbreak of the full-scale war, the EU has increased its support for Ukrainian media allocating tens of millions of euros. Maksym believes that grant aid is important, including to prevent ‘news deserts.’