In mid-September, the 12th Mariupol School of Entrepreneurship was launched in Dnipro. Established in 2020 to support Mariupol residents who wanted to start businesses, the school still focuses mainly on them, but also internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The school is run by the Mariupol City Centre for SME Support and Development, thanks to a grant from the Eastern Europe Foundation under the EU-funded ‘Phoenix’ programme.

A highlight of the school is that the author of the best business project prepared by the students receives €1,500 to start their own business. This is extra motivation and incentive to study harder.

Kateryna Pleskonosova (from Mariupol) won the competition for the previous school. She has been running her own business for several months, making toys and souvenirs from wool.

The Phoenix programme aims to strengthen Ukrainian civil society to counter the effects of war. Grants to organisations are one of its elements.

Ensuring a full life for people with disabilities was a significant challenge for the Ukrainian government and society, even before the full-scale Russian invasion. Now, the problem is becoming even more acute. According to the Ministry of Social Policy, the number of people with disabilities has increased by 300,000 over the past year and a half.

From February to September, the organisation implemented the ‘Communities where everyone is taken care of’ project, supported by the U-LEAD with Europe programme. It was aimed at IDPs and war veterans with disabilities.

The project was implemented in the Bratslav and Tulchyn communities of the Vinnytsia region. At the end of September, wheelchair hire centres were opened in the centres of both communities. Although the government buys wheelchairs for people with disabilities, it can take a long time to receive them. In total, the project purchased 20 wheelchairs for the 2 communities, and NGO Harmony provided walking frames and crutches.

The opening of the rental points was the final stage of the project. At the beginning of the project, structures were created to directly implement the project activities and to take care of people with disabilities in the future. They are NGO Tryzvuk in Bratslav and the Municipal Centre for Social Services in Tulchyn. In addition to opening the rental centres, the project provided mental health support to people with disabilities, facilitated their socialisation in the communities, worked to improve public perception of them and their needs, and helped them to start using wheelchairs.

Service providers have been trained to understand the needs of people with disabilities, sometimes in creative ways.

This was a pilot project. It is expected that the experience gained will be useful for public associations and local governments.

Due to the challenges posed by the aggressor affecting grain exports, Ukraine and its allies are exploring various alternatives, one of which is to route exports through Moldova and Romania. The European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) has been actively supporting this initiative.

On 11 September, the EUBAM-led tripartite Romanian-Moldovan-Ukrainian Customs Coordination Group met at the Cahul (Moldova)-Oancea (Romania) border crossing point to address issues related to the Solidarity Lanes in the lower Danube region.

The Solidarity Lanes initiative, launched by the European Commission in March 2022, aims to enhance border crossing processes for agricultural products from Ukraine. Since its launch, 42 million tonnes of grain, oilseeds and related products have been exported from Ukraine through Solidarity Lanes.

The Customs Coordination Group brings together customs authorities from all three countries, and serves as a platform for the participation of various other relevant institutions.

Slawomir Pichor, Head of EUBAM, emphasises the significance of this cooperation, particularly in light of the challenges Ukrainian grain exporters face.

In his view, there are enormous effects on border crossing speed when border authorities work together, clearance processes are harmonised, and infrastructure is well-designed.

During the meeting at the Cahul-Oancea border crossing point, participants discussed changes in the operational situation at the border crossing points and measures to address bottlenecks and administrative barriers that hinder the smooth flow of agricultural products.

Leading the Customs Coordination Group is just one of EUBAM’s efforts to support the Solidarity Lanes initiative. For instance, the mission played a role in advocating for the swift opening of the railway border crossing point at Serpneve-1 – Basarabeasca. This new rail link, launched in March/April of this year, has contributed to diversifying the transportation routes for Ukrainian cargo.

Between July and September, the Lviv-based NGO Tarilka delivered 750 kits containing food products, drinking water, hygiene and household items to victims of the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant explosion in the Kherson region. More than 320 residents of the region and their families received aid.

These are the results of the ‘Crisis Response to Flooding in Kherson Region: Assistance to Victims’ project, which Tarilka implemented with financial support from the European Union. In June, the organisation was one of the winners of the EU4CSOs Emergency Actions grant competition, which was announced immediately after the destruction of the plant by the Russians.

The victims received food, water, adult and children’s nappies, feminine hygiene products, toothpaste and brushes, dry and wet wipes, bedding and underwear, towels, socks, and other items. Tarilka carefully monitored the targeting of this aid.

Although the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant was blown up in early June, helping the victims is still important, says Iryna Ilyina, a volunteer with NGO Tarilka Kherson.

Seven environmental projects were launched in September as a result of a call for proposals for civil society organisations run by the EU-funded think tank, DiXi-Group. The aim is to promote change in communities in line with the European Green Deal.

Among the winners is the NGO ‘Source of Public Initiatives’ from the Tupychiv territorial community in the Chernihiv region. The main actors in the project are local schoolchildren.

The project has two main focuses. The first is to provide children, the elderly, large families and local residents with fresh vegetables grown by schoolchildren. The second is to encourage the schoolchildren to become youth entrepreneurs in their community.

The project is already underway, and the gymnasium in the village of Vykhvostiv is setting up a farm: two 3 metre x 8 metre greenhouses, dehydrators, seedling cassettes and drip irrigation systems for each greenhouse. Schoolchildren will grow vegetable seedlings in the greenhouses and in the open field. Staff from the Department of Agricultural Technologies and Forestry at Chernihiv Polytechnic University will provide mentoring support to teach them how to use modern technology.

In particular, the school’s products will be targeted at people registered with the Social Assistance Centre.

The competition of environmental initiatives was organised by DiXi-Group as part of the EU funded ‘Integrating Sustainable Development in Ukraine in line with the European Green Deal’ project.