A ceremony to honour the winners of the grant competition under the ‘Courage to Business’ programme took place in the Grand Session Hall of Lviv City Hall. Sixteen participants — defenders, their wives, and family members — received certificates and financial support to develop their own businesses.
Each winner will receive 100,000 hryvnias from Lviv City Council and up to 300,000 hryvnias from the German non-profit organisation DVV International. In addition, all programme participants received special business packages and vouchers for telecommunications and digital services from the initiative’s partner, Kyivstar.
Prior to receiving their grants, participants completed ten-day business training courses run by the Lviv City Council’s Entrepreneurship Support Centre, covering business plan development, grant application writing, and the fundamentals of marketing. Among the business ideas being taken forward are a fish farm, a rehabilitation clinic and recovery space for military personnel, jewellery making, and various other ventures.
‘Our policy in the city is straightforward: if you want to buy something, check whether that option is available from a veteran-owned business. If it is, you should always give veterans priority.’ — Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
‘Veteran businesses are not simply about entrepreneurial activity — they are about strength, confidence, resilience, and long-term development.’ — Iryna Tirel, coordinator of the project ‘Reintegration of War Veterans Through the Creation of Educational Opportunities: Our Own for Our Own’.
As of March 2026, 251 participants across nine cohorts had successfully completed the programme, with 472 hours of training delivered and 392 mentoring consultations conducted. In total, 91 participants received grant support from the city council in 2025, and 53 registered new sole trader businesses within the Lviv community. The programme is delivered by the Department of Economic Development and the Entrepreneurship Support Centre of Lviv City Council in partnership with DVV International, with financial support from the city community and the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.