Project grants: first call results

(Dis)connected Communities: how culture restores connection and creates new solidarity.

The Culture Helps Solidarity program supports female and male professionals in the field of culture and art from Ukraine to maintain the ability to work, remain resilient, and keep connections with their communities during the war.

The first call for project grants focused on forced displacement, relocation, living in new environments, and how returning from the front reshapes connections, creating new distances.

This time, the focus was on initiatives addressing this complexity and (dis)connection. Supported projects apply tools of socially engaged art, dialogue practices, and co-creation to support female and male veterans, active female and male service members, their families, and people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war.

Out of 320 applications received, 16 projects being implemented in Ukraine, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland have been supported. Within the current wave of project grants, participants receive up to 7,000 euros to implement cultural and artistic initiatives in Ukraine or abroad.

Congratulations to the participants whose applications received the highest evaluation scores:

NGO “Youth Drama Theatre ‘AmaTea’ – FELT_IT (Ukraine).

The project is establishing a permanent inclusive stop-motion animation studio for adults in Chernihiv. The studio will serve as a space for interaction and strengthening community ties through shared leisure. As of April 2026, approximately 12,867 people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war will reside in the city, and this number will continue to rise due to the constant shelling of the border regions. Within the project, there will be conduction a pilot animation course using dry and wet felting techniques. The goal is to support female and male veterans in overcoming emotional exhaustion, facilitate the adaptation of people who moved because of the war, and build connections between local female and male residents and new members of the Chernihiv community.

Dialogkraft Europa e.V. – Beyond the Papers: Reclaiming professional identity through participatory art (Germany).

The project explores how the identity and professional roles of Ukrainian women in Germany change under the influence of the local social system and adaptation norms. In the fifth year of the war, forced displacement causes a deep crisis of self-determination: female professionals often face barriers to the recognition of their qualifications and are forced to choose jobs that do not match their level.

Within the project, there will be artistic workshops where female participants transform copies of documents into artistic expressions. This is a way to critically examine bureaucratic systems and reconnect with personal histories and competencies. The project aims to bring together women from different waves of migration to create a space for dialogue and new possibilities.

“Charitable Foundation ‘03:00 Foundation’” – Own/Other: A Participatory Photo Exhibition on Difference, Visibility, and Belonging (SVOEINSHE) (Ukraine)

SVOEINSHE is a participatory photo exhibition where blind female and male authors from Ukraine create self-portraits using Fujifilm cameras. The project transforms “visible otherness” from an object of social discomfort into a subjective narrative. Within the project, female and male participants independently choose locations, angles, and stories for their work.

The project was sparked by a comment on a TikTok video featuring a blind guide from the Museum in the Dark: “Interesting, but it would be better to hide the eyes.” The exhibition addresses this discomfort and invites participants not to hide, while encouraging female and male viewers to accept the otherness around them.

The exhibition consists of two parts. In the public gallery, female and male authors present self-portraits, their tactile copies, and audio interviews. In the reflection zone, female and male visitors can leave anonymous notes about the “other” within themselves. These notes will become part of a collective installation — a “map of otherness” of the city. The exhibition is accompanied by open events — curator-led tours, discussions, and meetings with the female and male authors. This creates a space for live dialogue between different people.

Generation Nika – Youth Voices Connecting Communities (Czech Republic)

The project promotes social cohesion and the adaptation of people from vulnerable groups in communities, while supporting the mental health of youth through storytelling and audiovisual arts. Main focus is the work with teenagers in frontline towns in Ukraine, creating a safe space for meetings and sharing experiences — a path to rebuilding trust in a context of long-term isolation and stress.

Through collective filmmaking, female and male participants transform their lived experiences into short fiction films, develop communication skills, and process difficult experiences in a supportive environment. The project consists of two phases, engaging 30–40 young people, with a total community reach of approximately 450 people.

The results will include two fiction films and documentaries about the filming process. Screenings in Ukraine and Western Europe will create a space for dialogue and solidarity. Building on the results of the pilot phase (6 workshops, over 80 female and male participants), the project amplifies youth voices and strengthens community resilience.

Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im.Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego We Wrocławiu – Starting Point – a creative laboratory for migrant youth in Wrocław (Poland)

To strengthen Polish-Ukrainian dialogue, the project is implemented in cooperation with two organizations: the College of Eastern Europe (KEW) and the independent GAS Theatre, founded by people who were forced to leave their homes in frontline regions.

The project is launching a creative laboratory for youth in Wroclaw. Over two months, female and male participants will work in theater workshops and literary discussions, exploring themes of growing up and the adaptation of young people in a new environment.

The final result will be a performance for female and male residents of Wroclaw that highlights the challenges youth face after forced displacement. The production combines documentary theater and performance, focusing on collective creativity and intercultural dialogue. The script is based on interviews about the real experiences of young people and books on migration published by KEW.

A.O. Laolaltă – Community Resilience through Sustainable Skills and Inclusive Spaces (Moldova)

At Community Center 151 in Chișinău, the project brings together Ukrainian women who were forced to leave their homes due to the war and female and male representatives of vulnerable local groups. Through collaborative artistic practices, the project restores social ties and create a space for interaction.

Within the tailoring and upcycling courses, female and male participants work in a safe environment, supporting each other and sharing their stories through collective creativity. The project transforms workshops into a participatory cultural practice, supporting people in overcoming the isolation and emotional exhaustion caused by forced displacement.

The project concludes with a public showcase and the presentation of the InTorba merchandise collection. These events highlight people’s resilience and strengthen the bonds between those who have moved and the host community through new forms of solidarity.

Mariana Berezovska – The Unspoken (Ukraine/Germany)

Unspoken is a writing project for small groups in Kyiv and Berlin. The project brings together people whose lives have been changed by forced displacement, separation, and living across two countries since the start of the full-scale invasion. Female and male participants will work with a guide developed in collaboration with trauma-informed female and male therapists. The program includes three facilitated sessions in each city. Through structured questions, a safe space is created to reflect on experiences that are difficult to discuss publicly: exhaustion, distance, guilt, and the pressure to «be resilient». During a joint online meeting, both groups will connect, and anonymous fragments of their work (if they choose) will become part of a printed publication. The guide will remain a tool for other people and groups to support connections and make sense of the experience of living during the war.

Napsugár Trömböczky and Eszter Dobos – Stories Carried by Old Waters – Chapter Prague (Czech Republic)

The theater brings together Ukrainian women aged 55+ who moved to Prague after the start of the full-scale invasion and older Czech women. The project is implemented in cooperation with Studio ALTA and Zastávka Meteor — an organization that supports people who were forced to leave their homes and people in vulnerable situations. This initiative responds to the disruption of social ties caused by the war and forced displacement.

During workshops and the final presentation, female participants explore themes of belonging, memory, and mutual support through water imagery. Inspired by this connection, they rethink the idea of nation and explore the impact of war on human and beyond-human communities. The project creates a safe space for regular meetings, creativity, and building trust among women of different nationalities. The public presentation introduces the local audience to this experience and strengthens solidarity within the community.

Platform of Theatrical Initiatives – Local Culture Festival ‘Kharkiv Sea’ (Ukraine)

The project is implemented in cooperation with the local culture festival Kharkiv Sea and the Broken Window Theory initiative in the urban space of Kharkiv. Kharkiv Sea explores city identity during the war and brings communities together through artistic, educational, and performative practices. Broken Window Theory focuses on visual art that emerges as a response to city destruction, particularly through working with OSB boards in public space.

Within this cooperation, exhibitions, performances, workshops, and public events will take place with the participation of female and male artists, as well as female and male city residents, including youth and people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war. Specifically, the Artifacts exhibition will take place within the festival. It explores the theme of human «ebbs and flows», addressing the city-as-sea archetype and reflecting on the experience of forced displacement. The project combines artistic practices to process the experience of living in a frontline city and create a space for reflection and building connections through participation in an open cultural process.

Pottery in the Dark – A touch that restores connection (Ukraine)

For five months, the project supports female and male veterans and people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war through the art of ceramics. In the safe and inclusive studio HAOS ceramica in Vinnytsia, female and male participants restore social connections, mental health, and inner balance through touch and collective creativity. Within the project, regular workshops are conducted in pottery, modeling, and painting, as well as group meetings with female and male psychologists and therapists. Ceramics combine therapy and interaction: the project supports people in their internal recovery and return to active community life through a shared creative experience.

NGO Re:Ground Forening – Things for the Soul: Workshop of Warm Connections (Ukraine)

Things for the Soul: workshop of Warm Connections is a four-month cultural laboratory of collaborative creation in Bila Tserkva. The focus is on working with a group of 16 people: youth, local female and male residents, families of female and male service members, and people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war.

Female and male participants independently determine the format of the final result — from an installation or exhibition to an artistic object in public space — and implement it together, from the initial idea to public presentation. The project tests the hypothesis that regular collective creativity reduces social distance and strengthens trust. In addition to creating a cultural product, the process is documented. These findings will serve as a practical model for other communities and as a basis for scaling the project in 2027–2028.

NGO Sol-Diez – Together in Sound: Collective Music-Making for Community Connection in Zakarpattia (Ukraine)

This community music project brings together local female and male residents with people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war. Through formats of a community choir, a rhythm ensemble, and creative groups, the project engages adults, youth, and children. Female and male participants independently choose their way of interaction — through voice, rhythm, or musical co-creation.

The project is based on the approach «from parallel to collective»: first, groups work separately in accessible formats and then move toward shared artistic practice. During facilitated sessions, musical pieces are created and existing materials adapted, supporting the development of confidence and a sense of shared responsibility for the result.

The project concludes with a community event where vocal and instrumental groups unite in a shared composition. By creating various entry points for artistic participation, the project supports building trust, dialogue, and a renewed sense of belonging in communities changing due to forced displacement.

NGO “Symbol” – Voices in Motion (Ukraine)

In Zakarpattia communities, people with radically different experiences of war meet daily on the streets or in schools, yet they often remain strangers to each other. Those who were forced to leave their homes due to the war, female and male veterans returning from the front, local youth, and female and male community residents live side by side but feel an emotional distance.

Voices in Motion addresses this disconnection. A youth ensemble of 10 certified female and male playback musicians from various parts of Ukraine will visit 5 cities and towns in Zakarpattia. Performances will take place in schools and youth organizations, where female and male audience members share personal stories, and female and male performers enact them on stage. This experience of empathy creates conditions for encounters that rarely happen in ordinary life. Over six months, five performances will be held, engaging 40 to 80 people each.

NGO “Khmelnytskyi Regional Youth Non-Governmental Organization ‘Territory’ – A Residency for Male and Female Veterans in Bakota (Ukraine)

This project will be a 5-day retreat residency for 10 veterans from the artistic community. The residency will take place at Bakota Hub — a creative space in the village of Horaivka in the Khmelnytskyi region, located far from large cities and air raid alerts, in the natural surroundings of the Podilski Tovtry and the Dniester Canyon.

Returning from service, these individuals find themselves between two worlds — the experience of war alienates them from the artistic environment, while their creative past feels distant. In this project, the residency will become a space where they can reconnect — with art, with fellow creative professionals, and with themselves.

Participants will work in three directions — land art, audiovisual storytelling, and music — each guided by a practicing curator. At the same time, daily meetings with a psychologist will take place. During the creation of the land art object, participants will work in the open space of the village, which will naturally attract attention and engage local residents in a live dialogue.

As a result of the residency, participants will create a land art object, audiovisual storytelling pieces, and a collective musical track, which will be published and will remain accessible after the project’s completion as documentation of the lived experience of return.

Yuliia Makliuk – Creativity Connects: A Ceramics Workshop Supporting the Healing of Injured Veterans (Ukraine)

Within the project, 25 weekly participatory ceramics workshops are conducted for 8–10 female and male patients with amputations at the Irpin Military Hospital. These sessions are held in cooperation with female and male occupational therapists. The program is adapted to the physical abilities of the female and male participants, specifically for people with prosthetics, those using wheelchairs, or those on bed rest.

During the workshops, female and male veterans master the basics of working with clay, create their own works, and collaborate on a collective artistic object for the hospital. The project builds on the one-year experience of running ceramics workshops in this facility using trauma-informed facilitation and adapted artistic techniques.

This is vital for strengthening connections between people undergoing long-term treatment who often face isolation. The project supports interaction between female and male veterans and invited civilian female and male artists. Collective creativity creates a space for support and recovery, fosters emotional well-being, and supports the building of personal connections. Additionally, working with clay supports the restoration of neural connections after trauma and improves fine motor skills.

Valerii Kholod and NGO URenew – Path to Oneself (Ukraine)

Path to Oneself is a participatory cultural program in Kholodnyi Yar, a national nature park covering 6,833 hectares with a 300-year history of resistance. The project brings together female and male veterans, people who were forced to leave their homes due to the war, and civilian female and male residents. This shared four-hour experience aims at restoring connections between people through nature, silence, cultural memory, and collective action.

Female and male participants follow a forest trail accompanied by an audio story from a female or male veteran. The route includes stops for reflection, shared silence on a historical clearing, and a meal based on rebel traditions. Female and male participants also collectively create items that will be sent to the front bearing their names.

Between July and December 2026, six pilot sessions will take place, engaging over 90 female and male participants.

The “Culture Helps:Solidarity” project is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and implemented by the European Cultural Foundation (Netherlands), Insha Osvita (Ukraine), zusa (Germany), and the VETERANKA movement (Ukraine).