Assistance to a social dialogue in the eastern regions – Kharkov and Dnepr (June-December 2015 under Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany financial support)

Chernobyl History Workshop and the International Educational Centre, Dortmund, realized the project “Assistance to a social dialogue in the eastern regions – Kharkov and Dnepr” under Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany financial support within their mutual work. This project became a logical continuation of the project of 2014 on strengthening the potential of self-help for disable people and cooperation with Chernobyl organizations.

From 2014 the motivation for conducting this project was the attention of Ukrainian and international community first of all to the problems of displaced persons and ATO participants returned from zone of military actions. In such situation, there is a possibility that socially vulnerable groups such as the chernobyls, people suffered because of Chernobyl NPS breakdown, including disable persons, found themselves alone with their problems. At the same time, the experience of liquidators and displaced persons from the exclusion zone may be helpful and important for people displaced and suffered from military action on the East of Ukraine at present.

Different events directed to the support and strengthening of social dialogue in the biggest cities of the Eastern Ukraine – Kharkov and Dnepr were conducted during the project. 3 consultancy centres in Bogoduhov, Vilcha and Losovaya were created on the basis of Chernobyl organizations. In these centres internally displaced persons and people with disabilities can get all the necessary information according to legal issues and other assistance. In the course of project the terms of creation and successful functioning of social enterprises in Kharkov were researched, that became a fundament for the development of business plans for opening social enterprises on the base of non-governmental organizations of social direction. The conduction of Social Forums in Kharkov and Dnepr were events of great importance. More than 80 non-governmental organizations, which got the opportunity to demonstrate the results of their work, to exchange the experience and develop joint strategy of work on key directions, were represented on the Social Forum in Kharkov. Social Forum in Dnepr gathered together Chernobyl organizations and just created organizations of ATO participants, which discussed the perspectives of uniting efforts and made a decision of joint work in the sphere of socially vulnerable groups’ rights defense. One of the main results of this forum was signing of the Memorandum about cooperation between the chernobyl-liquidators and ATO participants living in Dnepr region.

Moreover, the competition of research essays “Chernobyl and Eastern Ukraine: portraits and destinies of 1986-2015” was conducted during the project. The objective of the project was to attract the attention of young people to the topic of the Chernobyl catastrophe and the importance of keeping the memories, sharing the experience of the liquidators and forced displaced persons.