The girl is one of the winners of the “Together, we Create. Together, we Preserve” quiz on Euroquiz.org.ua, which ran from 5 April to 5 May. A total of 100 young people won the competition. Depending on their scores, they got prizes – 25 branded hoodies, 35 panamas, and 40 eco-bags.

The quiz was part of a communication campaign with the same name to highlight the EU’s support for developing Ukrainian culture and preserving cultural heritage during the war.

Anna Gorokh, aged 10, from Yavoriv, Lviv oblast, took the quiz to learn more about cultural initiatives. She was most impressed by the information about an EU grant to restore ancient doors in Odesa.

The “Together, we Create. Together, we Preserve” quiz by Euroquiz.org.ua attracted a lot of interest – more than 2700 players participated.

In May, the ICTV story was one of a series of media reports highlighting EU support for Ukrainian culture and heritage during the war. Information about this EU support is being disseminated by the “Communicating the European Union for Ukrainians” (CEU4U) as part of the “Together, we Create. Together, we Preserve” communication campaign.

The materials talked a lot about helping Ukrainian museums.

In particular, the article “Chernihiv region’s culture can surprise the world, but only after victory” in Ukrainska Pravda refers to the Chernihiv Hryhorii Halahan Regional Museum of Art. Thanks to EU support, the museum has managed to keep its collection in good condition and survive the winter power cuts.

Peter Wagner, Head of the EU Service for Foreign Policy Instruments, recalls another story about the Chernihiv Regional Art Museum in an interview with Suspilne (pictured).

Peter Wagner also recalls that the EU and Aliph raised around two million euros in the first few weeks of the war alone. It is a small amount, but it helped 160 Ukrainian cultural institutions to receive emergency aid.

Lviv’s Territory of Terror Memorial Museum was among those to receive European aid.

The big screen shows the ruins of houses, footage of fierce fighting and the devastated countryside. Children recite poems on the smoky stage below, some with a music background. Pain, fear, hope for peace…

“Dear kind adults, stop the war; and I will paint spring with colors; I will draw you a sun laughing in the sky; I will no longer cry, and I will no longer be scared.”

These simple, sometimes profound, but always touching children’s poems are the basis of the literary and artistic performance “Fightback” which took place in Zhytomyr in May. This is part of the project “Volunteer Art Forces Vidsich [Fightback]” implemented by the Volunteer Headquarters of Zhytomyr with a grant from the EU-funded programme “Citizens for Democratization”.

Children’s perception of war is unique. What they feel and how they express their feelings through artwork is extremely valuable.

“It is a warm autumn in October; The time we go to the forest to pick mushrooms; But we all run to cellars; And our land is in an ocean of blood and tears“, the scene recalls the beginning of the Russian missile terror. Children of war suffer more emotionally than adults. Helping them cope with this stress is one of the aims of the Volunteer Art Forces Vidsich.

More than 541 million transactions were carried out via the Trembita data exchange system in the first quarter of this year, the EU-funded EU4DigitalUA project reported in May. This is significantly more than in the last reporting period in 2022.

More than 2.3 billion transactions – the exchange of information between different government electronic registers and information systems – have taken place through Trembita since the system went live. This enables government agencies to provide citizens with convenient and fast electronic services.

Earlier this year, for example, a service for submitting an online application for state marriage registration via Diia was launched. Before that, after the start of the war, Trembita offered ten electronic civil registry services, including obtaining duplicate birth, death, marriage and divorce certificates and extracts.

Work on Trembita started in 2016 as part of the EGOV4UKRAINE project, funded by the EU and SIDA (Sweden), and the system was put into commercial operation in 2020. It is currently supported by the EU4DigitalUA project run in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and will be taken over by the EU- funded DT4UA project launched last November. All three projects are being and have been implemented by the e-Governance Academy, Estonia.

The team is now working on many other services that will significantly simplify the lives of various citizens and entities, such as businesses.

Other plans for the project include enabling citizens to obtain an education document through the Diia portal, which is particularly important for the thousands of people whose documents were lost or destroyed during the war.

Recently, an unusual fund-raising campaign caused a stir on social and other media – some people were asking for donations to buy a monowheel for a military medic. They say it will make it easier for him to get to wounded soldiers.

The wheel costs up to 120 thousand hryvnias. Many people had justified doubts: how can a device designed to move on smooth city asphalt overcome pits, hills, mud, etc.?

Regardless of this story and how it is judged, donating must always be questioned and scrutinized. The authors of the handbook “Online Fraud with Donations During the War” also call for vigilance. The guide was published with the support of the EU and the International Renaissance Foundation as part of the grant component of the EU4USociety project and prepared by the NGO Minzmin in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation.

Indeed, there are many proven cases of fraud. In mid-May, for example, fraudsters were uncovered in the Chernihiv region who were approaching businessmen, claiming to be acting on behalf of the head of the local district state administration, asking for money to help the Ukrainian army.

The guide details how fraudulent organizations operate, what to do before donating and what not to do.

The model solutions cover various aspects of court administration.

For example, the introduction of a court volunteer service in the courts, based on the experience of international experts from Lithuania. Many people who come to the court need advice. Court staff cannot always provide this due to their heavy workload. Therefore, court volunteers – usually law students – provide visitors with all the necessary information, help them find the courtrooms, explain their rights and obligations, etc.

Another progressive model solution is the introduction of an integrated reception in courts. This is where visitors first come into contact with the justice system. This is where they can lodge and collect documents and get all the information about the court’s working hours, court schedules, courtrooms, etc.

Launched in 2018, the Model Courts initiative will be expanded in May 2023 to include new participants – judicial institutions from different parts of Ukraine and with different specializations.

The court hopes to have the Single Space fully operational by the end of this year.

In May, the EU Pravo-Justice project also launched the online platform “Model Courts: Good Practices Platform” with information and training resources for all courts, taking into account their needs in the context of martial law and post-conflict reconstruction.

As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some 1,500 cultural heritage sites and cultural infrastructure were destroyed. The EU-funded House of Europe project organized an expert debate on whether they should be restored as they were or rebuilt.

The initiative brought together architects, designers and cultural experts. The brainstorming session was part of the project’s Cultural Transformation Lab.

One of the examples discussed by the experts was the building at 151 Sobornyi Avenue in Zaporizhia. In October 2022, a Russian missile destroyed an entire section. At the same time, the house is part of a holistic architectural ensemble of the avenue built in Soviet times. This architectural style is also known as the Stalinist Empire style.

So, should we restore a part of the building as it was before the destruction, or should we take a different approach?

Andriy Ilyin, the designer and head of ILYIN STUDIO in Zaporizhia, believes that restoring or reconstructing damaged objects should be approached on a case-by-case basis, considering the percentage of damage. This is also the case here.

Svitlana Kulbashna, an architect and landscape designer from Dnipro, also suggests not returning to the past.

In addition to buildings or monuments of architectural value, there is also a great deal of destroyed cultural infrastructure: museums, palaces or cultural centers built according to Soviet models. They have no significant architectural value but are important to the communities. The House of Europe project believes this is also an essential topic for discussion.