Today, July 15, SpivdiyaHab was opened in Lviv on the basis of the Palace of Arts. This is a center that will provide a number of services to residents of the region, as well as to those who found refuge in Lviv Oblast due to military operations.
SpivDiya is a volunteer platform that was created in the regions of Ukraine by the Coordination Headquarters of the Office of the President together with the state, business, and authorities on March 5. During this period, the volunteer platform provides humanitarian and psychological assistance to people suffering from war. The next step was the creation of SpivDiyaHabs in the regions on the basis of youth centers in cooperation with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine.
The SpivDiya hub in the Lviv region became the 24th in the territory of Ukraine.
The following services will be provided free of charge in the hub:
- career counseling and employment;
- provision of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population;
- psychological support;
- the work of mobile groups SpivDia for the sake of children;
- support of SpivDia shelters in the region (SpivDia team visits to the communities of the region are expected).
“We have been operating in the Lviv region since the beginning of the war, but today we have expanded our range of activities and together with the Palace of Arts we are opening the SpivDiyaHab. This hub will provide services such as career counseling and employment assistance for people who have moved and do not know where to find work now. It’s also psychological support, an opportunity for children aged 5 to 12 to go through a psycho-emotional assistance program,” Iryna Tulyakova, executive director of the Spivdia charitable foundation, head of the board of the President of Ukraine’s Foundation for Support of Education, Science and Sports, said during the opening.
SpivDiyaHub in the Lviv Region was created on the basis of the Lviv Regional Youth Center. Therefore, the implementation of the tasks in it will be done by the youth. As the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Maryna Popatenko said, today there are 121 youth centers in Ukraine, their number was almost three times higher before the war. At first, young people based in the centers were involved in issuing and collecting humanitarian aid, the next step was psychological support.
“Sing Action Children” is an extremely weighty and important part, because many children are currently experiencing psycho-emotional trauma, and we must give an adequate reaction to this, help. And who else can help children if not young people,” Maryna Popatenko noted.
The center will provide services in cooperation with partners. These are also volunteers who will coordinate humanitarian aid issues, where professional support is needed, for example, working with children, youth will cooperate with UNICEF, and career consultants will provide professional advice on labor issues.
SpivDiyaHub will work in a 60:40 format. 60% of the services will be provided to displaced persons, 40% to the local population.
“Lviv region became a hub for millions of people who came here fleeing the war. This became possible only thanks to the active support of volunteers, public organizations and young people, who joined the ranks and made more than 4 million meals, collected tens of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid. Young people are an active part of the work we do at the station to ensure that people who are affected get the help they need. Psychological support, legal assistance, assistance in finding a job – all this will help the people who came here to understand and feel that they are needed by society,” emphasized Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv OVA.
SpivDiyaHub is located in the basement of the Lviv Palace of Arts, at 17 Kopernyka Street. A person who needs help can go directly there, or write to the page of the Lviv Regional Youth Center on Facebook “I need help from SpivDiyaHub” and young people who works there, explain the next steps to get help.
The team also plans to organize a series of events that will promote the integration of IDP youth living in the territory of Lviv region with representatives of local youth. In particular, by visiting the regions of Lviv Oblast.
For reference:
The SpivDiya platform was created to help the civilian population. It was created by young people together with the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, the “Believe in Yourself” charitable foundation with the support of the Agency’s “Dream and Act” program United States of America for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine, which is implemented by IREX, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Ukraine, the United Nations Development Program in Ukraine, the Initiative Center for the Promotion and Development of Public Initiatives “Unity”, the Coordinator of OSCE Projects in Ukraine, the European Union Project ” EY4Youth – Entrepreneurship and Employment”.