August 5, 2025

SGS 2024 Grantee: The Leader, Kremenchuk, Ukraine

Project: Bridges of Cooperation: Unity of people and dreams

When the war came closer to the city of Kostyantinivka in Donetsk region in the summer of 2024, Natalia, 43, had no choice but to flee. She packed a few belongings, took her 14-year-old daughter Svitlana by the hand, and left behind the life they knew. They arrived in Kremenchuk with little more than hope and the clothes on their backs.

“At first, I didn’t know what to do. I felt stuck between the past and a future I couldn’t imagine,” says Natalia. She and her daughter stayed at a temporary accommodation centre, where they first learned about the NGO The Leader and their project implemented in partnership with the NGO Youth Happy Family, with support from The BEARR Trust.

The Leader works in Kremenchuk, Poltava region, to promote leadership, personal development and economic empowerment among women and girls, the majority of whom are internally displaced persons (IDPs). Youth Happy Family, our project partner, works with children and young people, creating safe, educational, and creative spaces for young people who have been displaced or affected by war.

“Together, we developed and implemented the project ‘Bridges of Cooperation: Unity of People and Dreams’, aiming to restore the emotional resilience of internally displaced families and help them connect with the host community” says Viktor, project manager.

Natalia began attending art therapy sessions organised by The Leader. She describes these first steps as ‘tentative’, but they were enough to open a door. “The drawing sessions helped me breathe again,” she recalls. “I met other women who, like me, had lost everything. We shared silence and colour at first, and then stories.”

The drawing sessions were part of a larger effort by The Leader to create safe, empowering space for people affected by war. In parallel, Youth Happy Family worked with displaced children and teens, offering events that combined learning with emotional support.

Svitlana joined the ‘Happy Young Family’ events. Her favourite was the literary café: “At school, Ukrainian literature felt dry. But here, I saw it differently. We talked about writers not as homework but as people who lived through hard times too.” She also attended ‘Our History Is Not a Fairy Tale’, a series that connected young people with the deeper threads of national resilience. “It helped me understand that others have gone through war, loss, and rebuilding. That gave me strength.”

While her daughter found comfort and connection, Natalia continued her own journey. She joined a Motivational Circle group, a small, focused coaching programme aimed at goal-setting and confidence-building. “Those meetings changed something inside me,” she says. “I stopped waiting for my life to come back to me. I started moving toward it.”

With renewed confidence, Natalia found work in a local store. Within months, she was able to rent a modest apartment for herself and Svitlana. It wasn’t just about housing – it was a symbol. “We finally had our own key. It meant safety, privacy, dignity.”

Not everything came easily. Natalia admits there were moments when she doubted herself, especially when trying to integrate into a new community. “But every time I thought of giving up, I remembered the coach’s words: You have already survived the worst. Now you’re building the best.”

“Unfortunately, attention to the problems of IDPs has declined, despite the fact that Ukraine is losing territory every day. Therefore, it was important to hold events for displaced persons in the Kremenchuk community,” Viktor notes. “There was a need to help them find a ‘point of entry’ into the community, restore their psychological and emotional state, and start planning their future lives.”

“This project helped pull me out of the shell of expectation and despair,” Natalia says. “Thanks to the donors and organisers, I didn’t just survive, I started living again.”

The project involved 21 psycho-emotional and educational events for adults and children. A total of 151 children and 62 adults took part in these events. In particular, 17 teenagers learned how to choose a profession, 116 children delved into the history of Ukraine and its literary heritage, and 16 adult women – internally displaced persons and people with disabilities – mastered psycho-emotional recovery skills and learned how to set and achieve life goals. Another 46 adults and 18 of their children attended master classes and improved their psycho-emotional state.

“The only difficulty in implementing the project was that more participants attended the events than expected in the project application,” jokes Victor, “but we coped well with this and did not turn away any of the beneficiaries.”

Photos taken by Olena Radionova.

Contact:

NGO “The Leader”,

Kremenchuk, Poltava region

goliderka@gmail.com

+380 50 3306789