Shekurie Ramazanova, Yelyzaveta Khodorovska and Vladyslav Stasiuk became winners of an essay contest organised by the EU Delegation to Ukraine on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity. The award ceremony took place in March with the participation of the EU Ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, and the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, Olha Stefanishyna.

A total of 142 entries were submitted to the contest announced in January. 12 of them made it to the final. All finalists were invited to the EU Delegation to take part in the award ceremony.

One of the winners, 19-year-old Yelyzaveta Khodorovska from Odesa, said she likes writing on topics that are important and interesting to her.

Yelyzaveta’s essay concludes with a reference to the EU’s decision to start accession negotiations with Ukraine. In her comments to EU4Ukraine Review, she agrees that the process will also require Ukrainian society to focus on the values that underpinned and inspired the Maidan.

She believes that we should be prepared for a long EU accession process and work hard.

The European Union continues to support small and medium- sized businesses in various sectors of the economy. In March, a number of media outlets covered this issue as part of the ‘Together We Are Resilient. Together we are Europe’ communication campaign aimed at raising awareness of the EU’s support for SMEs and the opportunities available to entrepreneurs.

The Ambassador also spoke about a new EU instrument to support Ukraine, including its small and medium-sized businesses: Ukraine Facility with a budget of EUR 50 billion. It is described in a publication on Ekonomichna Pravda titled “Ukraine Facility: Marathon of Economic Integration”. EUR 33 billion will be provided in loans and EUR 17 billion in grants. In March, Ukraine received the first instalment of EUR 4.5 billion.

One example of the EU’s support for high-tech businesses, namely innovative start-ups, is the new EUR 20 million Seeds for Bravery project, which is being implemented with the financial support of the European Union through the European Innovation Council. Svyatoslav Sviatnenko, co-founder of Innov8, and Pavlo Kartashov, CEO of the Ukrainian Startup Fund, spoke about it on Radio NV. These organisations are part of the consortium implementing the project.

The funding application deadline for five grant programmes was in March, and a new round of competition was immediately launched afterwards.

In March, Radio NV also aired a programme on another area of business support from the EU for the development and implementation of green solutions. Grants for businesses are provided under the Climate Innovation Vouchers programme. In March, ten winners in the first round of the call for proposals were announced, who will receive a total of EUR 442 thousand.

In March, a series of videos about the winners of the Business Recognition Awards 2023 was also released. The EU Delegation to Ukraine acknowledged companies that have achieved significant success in their respective fields, including through the effective use of EU support.

In March, Poltava and Lviv hosted the “Culture in Time of War” Documentary Film Festival. The festival featured a series of five films produced by Ukraїner, a multimedia Ukraine studies project, with support of the EU Delegation to Ukraine as a part of the Together We Create. Together We Preserve communication campaign.

Four of these films are “regional” — dedicated to cultural life in the west, east, north, and south of the country. The fifth film focuses on the work of Ukrainian museums during the full- scale Russia’s invasion. Before Poltava and Lviv, the films were screened in Kyiv and Chernihiv.

The film screenings in Lviv and Poltava marked the closing events of the Together We Create. Together We Preserve communication campaign. The campaign aimed to inform Ukrainians about the support that the European Union provides for preserving Ukrainian cultural heritage and development in times of war. The communication campaign was implemented by the EU-funded project Communicating EU for Ukrainians (CEU4U). Before the screenings of films about culture during the war in different cities in Ukraine, the audience had the opportunity to communicate with representatives of the project and artists who received support from the EU.

This is a garden coworking space that operates at the school as part of an EU-funded project to develop value chains in the dairy and berry clusters of the Pyriatyn community in Poltava region.

Schoolchildren in Berezova Rudka grow carrots, apples, beetroots, potatoes, currants, raspberries, tomatoes and beans. High school students explore social entrepreneurship.

School headmaster Mykhailo Prokopenko said the project helped a lot with purchasing equipment.

The schoolchildren have great achievements. For example, last year they grew almost four centners of raspberries, more than two tonnes of carrots, and eight centners of beets on their plots.

The garden coworking space in Berezova Rudka is one of six that operate within the project. There are also art sewing, pottery, 3D innovation, and two culinary workspaces — one of them is also in the village, operating on the basis of the Shamrock cafe. Students from the garden coworking space sell tomatoes for pizza there.

Last year, all coworking spaces held more than 26 charitable events, 200 masterclasses, 270 workshops, 300 lessons, and 200 tours. They took part in charity fairs to raise funds for the Armed Forces more than 30 times.

The value chain development project in the dairy and berry clusters of the Pyriatyn community is being implemented by the Civil Society Institute.

The head of the Civil Society Institute is convinced that the innovations promoted by the project in various areas of the local economy create a sense of empowerment among young community leaders to succeed on their own. They see that this can be done both in the newest field of robotics and in the traditional community-based horticulture, food or sewing industries.

The project works not only with schoolchildren. With its support, 67 micro-greenhouse farms, 5 tractor-based land cultivation centres, 3 small dairy farms, and a grain storage facility based on polymer sleeves have sprung up in the community. A biomass baler was purchased and a fuel briquette manufacturing facility was commissioned.

The school was organised with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine and with the financial support of the European Union under the EU4Recovery — Empowering Communities in Ukraine.

Polina works with children at the Professor Rudnev Centre for Mother and Child in Dnipro. She sees how the attitude towards patients and rehabilitation is changing. “Previously, they prescribed a general treatment programme, therapeutic exercises, and let the child go. They did not care whether the rehabilitation programme was individually tailored or evidence- based. Nowadays, rehabilitation is geared towards maximising patients’ independence in everyday living and adaptation. This is so that, despite their limited abilities, children could interact with their peers and improve their quality of life.

Dnipro is one of the regions selected for the healthcare component of the EU4Recovery project, along with Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Poltava and Kherson. In each of them, 10 communities were selected – 8 primary and 2 in reserve.

Healthcare facilities in the communities have received questionnaires, based on which they will select staff to participate in the Physical Therapist of the Future trainings.

Polina Tyutyunnyk agreed to join the programme right away. She says she was a little worried because she had only a year and a half of experience in the occupation, but these worries turned out to be in vain.

A total of 24 rehabilitation specialists took part in the school. This year, in September, another such training will take place.

The Agency of European Innovations received almost 800 applications for participation in the webinar ‘ChatGPT digital service as an assistant in generating project concepts for EU programmes’. It took place in the second half of March and became another event of the project called Recipes for Success in EU Programmes.

The ongoing training within the project should help Ukrainian CSOs and other organisations to better prepare applications for EU programmes.

In December 2023, the AEI became the winner with its project called ‘Recipes for Success in EU Programmes’ in the ‘Assisting in the Preparation and Start of Negotiations on Ukraine’s Accession to the EU’ call for proposals under the European Renaissance for Ukraine. It is jointly implemented by the EU and the International Renaissance Foundation. As of the end of March, the agency has already held eight online events.

The trainings are of great interest to the target audience, the AEI notes.

The need to raise awareness of potential Ukrainian applicants about the procedures and modalities of EU programmes is confirmed by the surveys that the agency undertakes when receiving applications for participation in events.

For example, a survey on knowledge and experience in project management most often shows a 3 out of 5 on a five-point scale. The level of awareness of and participation in EU calls for proposals is about the same.

Olga Kvashuk, project manager of the International Renaissance Foundation’s Europe and World Programme, recalls that one of the priorities of last year’s call for proposals was to engage a broader range of Ukrainian organisations, particularly at the local and regional levels, in new opportunities to tap into the EU budget programmes that the candidate status opens up for Ukraine.

At the end of March, a documentary film about the international project ‘Looking into the Future’ was premiered being its final event. The project was jointly implemented over several months by the Garmyder Theatre in Lutsk and the ZUŠ Jozefa Rosinského v Nitre art school in Nitra, Slovakia, with funding from the European Union’s Culture Helps programme.

The participants were teenagers aged 14-17, 10 each from Lutsk and Nitra. Some had experience in theatre, some did not – but together they created an impressive and sensual performance called ‘Looking into the Future’. It is about the integration of teenagers from different cities and the search for resources for the future during the war.

Nitra, Donetsk, Lutsk, Rubizhne, Bratislava, Uzhhorod, Kramatorsk, Novoukrainka, Novyi Mosyr, Kherson, Mariupol, Shala, Izium — these are the hometowns of the performers.

At the first stage, the children took part in training and acting practices separately in Lutsk and Nitra. Then the Ukrainian team came to Slovakia, and all 20 young actors and actresses created a play in five days.

After leaving, the teams created Ukrainian and Slovak versions of the play in their respective towns.

The rehearsals in Lutsk for ‘Looking into the Future’ were held at the Cultural Shelter, which is connected to another EU-funded project implemented by Garmyder and completed in March.

The shelter was equipped with the financial support of an infrastructure grant from the House of Europe.

Even before the war, Garmyder organised the Hangar art space in Lutsk, which turned into a large volunteer headquarters after the invasion began. And for traditional social and cultural activities, it rented a large room in a new building and set up a shelter there.

Later, the Hangar was used as an art venue again, and a problem arose: there were two spaces, but only one set of theatre equipment. So, we had to move it from the Hangar to the Cultural Shelter and back again all the time, explained Ruslana Porytska.

In March, the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI) presented an integrity assessment of the municipal utility company Mykolayivvodokanal. This is one of the new tools of the programme aimed at increasing the efficiency, accountability and transparency of municipal enterprises in partner cities, minimising corruption risks and improving public service delivery.

In addition, EUACI, together with its consultants, conducted integrity assessments of water utility companies in other partner cities: Chernivtsi, Chervonohrad and Nikopol.

How the integrity assessment works. First, the methodology is developed for a particular enterprise. It is based on the best practices of assessing corruption risks in state-owned and municipal enterprises, relevant Ukrainian legislation and OECD corporate governance principles.

The assessment is conducted in 8 areas and has more than 80 indicators. The key areas are general management, services, communications, corporate governance, ethical aspects, public procurement, asset management, financial and economic performance, etc.

Based on the assessment findings, a detailed report is prepared, and a Risk Mitigation Plan is developed in cooperation with the company and the municipality. It is approved by the executive committee of the municipal council. EUACI then assists the company and the local administration in implementing the plan within its mandate and monitors the implementation together with the administration.

The integrity assessment is currently underway for the central municipal hospitals in Chervonohrad and Zhytomyr, the municipal public transport enterprise in Chernivtsi and the Municipal Roads Administration in Zhytomyr.