#GO_BEYOND_BOUNDS — HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS ENCOURAGED YOUNG PEOPLE TO INTERACT ONLINE
How can youth organizations adapt to the new realities caused by the pandemic and continue to operate? The NGO “Open Space” has developed a special mentoring programme that helps people launch social initiatives using online tools.
While being a challenge, the pandemic has also motivated people to expand the usual bounds of approaches to implementing social projects. Thinking along these lines, the team of the NGO “Open Space” started to develop the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme, which aims to help young people be champions of positive changes in their communities, among other things, through implementing their social initiatives online.
Andriy Sydorenko, head of the programme, says that the team has realized that they need to teach young people how to create and manage online projects using modern tools and new approaches to work.
With a view to making participation in the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme as effective as possible, the team devised its own formula, which is as follows:
Short modules that are as practical as possible + tactics for small victories and recognition + personal contact between, and mentoring support for, participants = successfully implemented social initiatives.
The online training programme, which lasted several months, required participants to do practical tasks. As a result, 25 social initiatives were prepared and launched.
“However, the effort we had to put into obtaining such a result was incomparably greater that the effort we would have had to put into an offline initiative,” Sydorenko said.
This year, young people aged from 18 to 35 years old across Ukraine participated in the programme.
The world is changing, but there are still quite broad opportunities for interacting and developing initiatives.
The topics of the initiatives that have been set up thanks to the mentoring programme are diverse: a chatbot to help victims of domestic violence; a mobile application to popularize the culture of eco-consciousness; inclusive theatrical and cultural online projects; a series of initiatives aimed at protecting stray animals and changing attitudes towards non-pedigree animals; an online congress on equal opportunities; webinars for ATO veterans; online courses for doctors on transgender patients’ access to quality medicine, and so on.
Here are some of them in greater detail:
The NEXT Generation: an inclusive theatrical project
How do you help young audiences develop values, such as kindness, love, respect, honesty and tolerance for people with disabilities? Nataliya Boltova, the initiator of the NEXT Generation project asked these questions. She decided to create an inclusive product and involve children with and without disabilities in beautiful theatrical productions.
“Society will change if we work together and meet each other halfway,” said Nataliya Boltova, the initiator of the NEXT Generation inclusive theatrical project. “Speaking about a problem is the first step to solving it. And I, as a mother of a child with disabilities and as a social teacher who has experience in working with many families that have children with disabilities, am convinced that this project will help such children become socialized into society and fully realize their creative potential, while also releasing them from isolation and boosting their self-esteem.”
Natalia Boltova is actively advocating her idea among parents, teachers, volunteers and Chernihiv’s local authorities. She believes that these theatrical performances will not bring children’s psychological and physical problems to the fore, frightening the children and heightening their sense of being different. On the contrary, they will reveal the talents of growing young kids — the new NEXT generation.
Online assistance for domestic violence victims
The BreakOutBot project was one of the initiatives of the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme.
“Many women in Ukraine fall victim to domestic violence,” said Anna Trushkina, a co-founder of the project. She believes that in the 21st century violence can be overcome by providing people with quick access to information.
“Our chatbot is an exceptionally important one because it aims to help those women who realize that they have a problem, but do not know where to turn for help,” Trushkina said.
What is BreakOutBot? It is a Telegram chatbot that provides help to domestic violence victims that shows a list of crisis centres, shelters, free legal aid centres and other help sources, based on the user’s location. To obtain aid, a woman needs to press “start” and to select the oblast and town/city in which she lives. After that a list of all crisis centres, shelters, family protection centres, psychologists and lawyers she can contact for advice and assistance will be displayed.
“Our online service is accessible across Ukraine. We’d like to unite those who want to change the world through fighting for human rights, and specifically women’s rights,” Trushkina said.
EQuality Docs — doctors of the future
How can one overcome the conservative medical system and make it more open to the needs of the LGBT community? How can one teach doctors to speak respectfully to such people, and not be rude or discriminate against them? Daryna Dmytriyevska, a general practitioner and the initiator of the EQuality Docs project, has been asking these questions for a long time.
Dmytriyevska’s initiative, implemented with support from the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme, has provided doctors across Ukraine with the opportunity to learn online to deal with patients from the LGBT community.
“My goal is to teach as many doctors as possible how to speak respectfully with patients from the LGBT community, and how to provide medical aid to these people properly. Knowledge will spread in this way, providing people in every town/city with access to a new generation doctor,” said Dmytriyevska.
Although Dmytriyevska is implementing this project by herself, she has started to get support from colleagues, journalists, NGOs, and human rights organizations.
Reaching out to people’s hearts and changing the lives of stray animals
Kateryna Arisoy, a project initiator from the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, started dreaming about establishing an animal shelter when she was still a child.
“When we see how animals change when they feel they are loved and cared for and how their eyes, once frightened and full of pain, start to radiate joy and happiness, we become goal-oriented and motivated to continue our efforts to develop animal protection across the country,” said Arisoy.
That is why Arisoy launched the Reaching out to People’s Hearts project as part of the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme. The project consisted of a number of initiatives, such as the Good Fairy Marathon to find homes for stray animals, the King and Queen of the Backyard contest, and the Gentlefolks of Bakhmut — a festival of great dogs, which aimed to change attitudes towards non-pedigree animals. The counting of animals was also arranged, and a proposal was submitted to the local government that the town change its rules for dealing with animals.
For three years in a row, participants in the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme have been organizing joint initiatives to tackle a given problem. This year, without hesitation, excessive anxiety was considered their top priority issue. Therefore, as part of the programme, the team prepared a comic visualizing the main techniques for overcoming anxiety. These educational posters have already found their way to dozens of schools, medical facilities, organizations and editorial offices across the country.
“This year we have been united by the global challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made it apparent that mental health is very important and that all of us should take care of it,” said Anastasiya Nizhnik, executive director of “Open Space”.
Despite global changes brought about by the pandemic, the “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme has become widespread and, by using technology, was able to unite young people from nine oblasts of Ukraine, who have already begun to actively implement their social initiatives.
“Open Space” activists do not intend to rest on their laurels — they are prepared to face new challenges and have already started thinking about how to improve and enhance the programme next year.
The “Change Now: Go Beyond Bounds” programme is being implemented by the NGO “Open Space” within the implementation of UNDP project “Civil Society for Enhanced Democracy and Human Rights in Ukraine,” and with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
The entry was authored by:
Anna Mysyshyn, UNDP in Ukraine
Andriy Sydorenko, “Open Space”
The entry was edited by:
Tetyana Kononenko, UNDP in Ukraine
Translation from Ukrainian:
Kristina Zasypkina
You can also read this article in Ukrainian
