Themes by tag: Zaporizhzhia

“Darling, I Live on!” is a psychological support project for women who lost their husbands in the war. It operates in Zaporizhia.

In March 2023, activist Yaryna Herashchenko was approached by a family friend who had lost her military husband who asked her for support. Then the women came up with the idea to create the project “Darling, I Live on!” Yaryna’s mother, who is a psychologist, got involved as well.

Over the course of a year, 22 participants joined the project. As part of the initiative, women receive psychological aid and support on their way to recovery. In particular, they take part in various activities: archery, yoga and Thai boxing. Women also participate in field sessions. For example, on the island of Khortytsia, the participants wrote letters to their loved ones, made small paper boats from their messages and sent them down the Dnipro. They also treated each other to their loved ones’ favorite dishes.

The participants are also taking part in two photo projects: “Memory of you” (photos with memorabilia that help the participants tell the stories of their husbands) and “Darling, I Live on!” (“awakening photo shoot”). Group 4 meetings will start in March.

• dead
• military
• psychological support
• women
• Zaporizhzhia

Viktoriia Zahreba has been engaged in a youth sports tourism job. When the full-scale war began, the frontline shifted to Viktoriia’s village in Zaporizhia Oblast. The woman acknowledged that there was no reliable shelter in the village and decided to create one. Viktoriia found a school basement where coal used to be stored. The basement needed to be cleaned up, so she turned to the Ukrainian Women’s Fund for support, applied for a grant, and won. The Foundation provided assets and the villagers got down to modern shelter equipment. It was opened in March 2023 and can accommodate 60 people.

The shelter also serves as a safe environment for leisure, where training and events in psychology, mine safety, psycho-emotional support for children, and women’s leadership are held.

• reconstruction
• women
• Zaporizhzhia

Vitalii Hrytsayi is 48 years old and has been repairing cars in Zaporizha for 28 years. The man is a veteran who fought in 2014 in Mariinka, Donetsk Oblast. Later he was demobilized and returned to car repair. Vitalii says he has always dreamed of building a car with his own hands, but he never thought he would have to make one for the war. It took the mechanic 6 years to build his first all-terrain buggy entirely on his own in his spare time. When the full-scale invasion outbreak, he had to speed up because his military friends asked him to build them a war buggy. Now Vitalii is building his third all-terrain vehicle. Each vehicle is different from the others because Vitalii modifies the design to fit a specific task for the soldiers: reconnaissance, assault, or evacuation. Vitaliy cannot draw, so he keeps all the necessary diagrams and calculations in his head.

The mechanic says that Ukrainian defenders need such buggies because they are difficult for the enemy to detect. And they go where a jeep or off-road vehicle cannot.

• volunteers
• Zaporizhzhia

The Khortytsia National Reserve also suffered due to the occupiers’ blowing up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station. Experts have recorded the water bodies shallowing. In addition, the reserve administration notes that the water level drop in the Dnipro River has revealed the remains of wooden bridges dating back to 1944, which had been underwater for almost 70 years. Read more here.

Journalists can also learn more from local scientists about the consequences of the Kakhovka HPP explosion for the Kamianska Sich National Park in the Kherson region.

For reference: The Khortytsia National Reserve includes the island of Khortytsia (the largest Dnipro island), the adjacent(Baida, Try Stohy, Dubovyi, Rozstebyn islands, and Serednia, Blizniuky rocks), and the Vyrva tract on the right bank of the Dnipro, as well as the Kamianska Sich historical monument of national importance in Kherson region.

• russian crimes
• Zaporizhzhia

The team of the World Central Kitchen charity organization is feeding people who are forced to evacuate from flooded areas due to the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP dam. In particular, they work in Kherson region, Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhia.

For reference: WCK has been working in Ukraine since the first days of russia’s full-scale invasion. In general, this organization funds and provides products to create food kits in countries and regions experiencing humanitarian, climate or man-made crises.

• casualties
• food
• russian crimes
• Kherson
• Zaporizhzhia

Teachers in Zaporizhia hold sports and entertainment activities for refugee children every week. Entertainment activities and performances are held in a theater. Parents and children who moved away from the occupied territories of Zaporizhia and Kherson regions come here every Sunday.

Due to the lack of high-quality equipment and the fact that the premises are unsuitable for sports games, creative teachers invent games for children with objects made of available materials: paper, balloons, etc.

• casualties
• children
• volunteers
• Zaporizhzhia