Co-creative communities
Funding: German Federal Foreign Office
Partners: MitOst e.V., EcoHub
Duration: June – December 2024
Budget: 1 400 000 UAH
Project management: Yuliia Alenina, Yuliia Nepyk, Olga Bondarenko
Contact: office@insha-osvita.org
Co-Creative Communities is an educational project in collaboration with MitOst e.V. (DE) and EcoHub (ARM), aimed at strengthening grassroots and local democratic processes in Ukraine and Armenia.
During crises, especially wartime, representatives of marginalized groups face even more frequent discrimination against their rights. Therefore, activists working with these groups require individual support, strengthening of horizontal networks, and the development of new tools.
The program focuses on developing practical skills and exploring new tools in the areas of participation, communication, accountability and transparency principles, and risk management in crisis conditions. Special attention was given to the participation of women and representatives of vulnerable groups.
As part of the program, in 2024, the following events took place:
- A three-day offline dialogue focused on strengthening connections within the Ukrainian activist community and identifying current needs and requests. The meeting in Kyiv on September 12-14 brought together 25 participants: leaders of NGOs and informal groups, activists working with internally displaced persons due to the war, veterans, people with disabilities, children and teenagers, neurodivergent individuals, the queer community, single mothers and fathers, among others.
- A trip of seven participants from Ukraine to a meeting organized by our partners from the Eco Hub Foundation in Vanadzor, Armenia. This exchange allowed for a comparison and analysis of the experiences of two post-Soviet countries, identifying commonalities and differences, and distinguishing effective (or ineffective) practices. The Vanadzor program also included a meeting with local government representatives, focused on engagement practices and their perspectives from the state sector.
- A series of online workshops dedicated to transforming abandoned spaces into community hubs, participatory budgeting, engaging communities in decision-making, and social cohesion as a method for overcoming wartime challenges.
The outcome of all meetings within Co-Creative Communities was the development of a toolkit — a manual compiling participatory tools created by a group of Ukrainian, Armenian, and German experts. It summarizes the experiences and findings from offline meetings in Kyiv and Vanadzor, as well as from the online workshop series. The toolkit is available via the provided link.
The project is implemented by Insha Osvita in partnership with MitOst e.V. and EcoHub with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office.
