Supporting community-led crisis response (SCLR) in Ukraine

Donor: Church of Sweden (Act Church of Sweden (CoS))

Coordinating partner: Christian Aid

Main stages of the project:

May 1 – December 31, 2023 (8 months) – the first phase of the project

February 1 – September 30, 2025 (8 months) – the second phase of the project

Program implementers: within the first phase of project implementation

Total budget: Phase 1: £650,648.63

Phase 2: £297,368

Project goal: The project was aimed at engaging communities, solving their problems and uniting initiative communities to implement a joint initiative within a city, village, or territorial community.

Geography of the project activities:

Project target groups:

The project’s target groups are people who have been negatively affected by the war and its related processes including deterioration of physical or mental health, displacement, loss of income, destruction of social networks and with limited access to medical and other services. Support can be provided to individuals, households and initiative groups of vulnerable communities. In particular, it is planned to provide services to the following categories of the population:

initiative groups;
residents of certain communities;
internally displaced persons (IDPs), including those who have returned to liberated territories;
individuals, households, groups affected by military actions;
people who have been resettled and lost their income, social support networks and with limited access to medical and other services;
people with difficult access to services and support (women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities);
people living with HIV or vulnerable to HIV infection and related problems (PWID, SW, MSM, TG), as well as their partners, family and close circle;
other key groups.

The main areas of project activity: providing mini-grants.

Results:

The 1st phase (March – December 2023) :

thanks to the work of 14 facilitators, 97 new initiative groups were created in 9 regions of Ukraine;
119 mini-projects proposed by initiative groups received funding from the partner NGOs;
40 public initiatives were implemented thanks to funding from the ICF “Alliance of Public Health”;
131,013 beneficiaries from among IDPs, people in difficult life circumstances, people with disabilities etc. received assistance within the framework of the project;

The main requests for which initiative groups received funding:

establishment of the centers and safe places for IDPs;
preparation for the winter period: purchasing warm clothing such as blankets, garments as well as heaters, etc.;
arrangement of bomb shelters or the centers for IDPs: partial renovation of premises, arranging the heating, installation of alternative sources of electricity (for example, purchase of power banks, uninterruptible power supply equipment etc.);
creating conditions for psycho-emotional relief for children and adults such as installation of playgrounds, arrangement of the psycho-emotional rehabilitation rooms etc.;
promoting reestablishment or improvement of the educational process for children, namely arrangement of educational and living areas, canteens;
improvement of the quality of life of people and children with disabilities: installation of ramps, placement of the special Braille signs, arrangement of the space for people with special needs, measures for improvement of the psycho-emotional conditions of people with special needs, etc.;
satisfying the humanitarian needs of the affected population – provision of food, humanitarian and hygiene kits.

Contact: Maryna Varban, Project manager , Varban@aph.org.ua