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📆 June at the Survivor Relief Centre in Zaporizhzhia was a month of support, training, and new partnerships. Throughout the month, the Centre’s team of specialists conducted psychological, art therapy, and educational sessions for people in need of support, and also trained professionals whose work determines the quality of assistance provided to survivors.
🎨 Together with psychologists, the participants at the Center created affirmation paintings, drawing on their own resources, inner strength, and emotions through creativity. During the art therapy session “Creating a Mandala with Coffee,” held in collaboration with the Zaporizhzhia Community Center of the Ukrainian Red Cross, the aroma of coffee, natural hues, and the process of drawing became tools for restoring inner balance. The participants also took part in the supportive game “Free: The Path to Tenderness,” which helped them tap into their own resources and experience the power of kind words.
✨ At the psychological workshop “My Path to My Goal,” participants explored their goals and mapped out a path to achieving them through creative exercises and therapeutic sandplay, discovering new opportunities for personal growth.
🤝 Training professionals has become a separate area of focus. The Center’s team conducted a training session for National Police officers on the trauma-informed approach to working with survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). In addition, the Center’s coordinator served as a speaker at a training session for representatives of social protection agencies, child welfare services, and the National Police on the topic “CSVN: Context, Indicators, Identification, and Response.”
In collaboration with the Zaporizhzhia Regional Employment Service, an event titled “Stress and Methods for Its Prevention and Reduction” was held, during which participants discussed not only ways to cope with stress but also professional self-fulfillment, building self-confidence, and an inclusive approach to employment.
🌱Psychologists held a session titled “Preventing Emotional Burnout” for the team at the Zaporizhzhia Regional Youth Center—a space where participants could pause, recharge, and remind themselves of the importance of taking care of their own mental health.
Each of these sessions offers more than just new knowledge or practical techniques. It’s an opportunity to be heard, to feel supported, to find inner strength, and to work together to build a community where people know that help is always nearby.
🖇️ The Survivor Relief Centre in Zaporizhzhia was established on the initiative of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, with the support of Kateryna Levchenko, the Government Commissioner for Gender Policy, in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Ukraine — UNFPA Ukraine, thanks to financial support from the governments of Austria, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden, in cooperation with local authorities and the NGO “Association of Women Abmassadors of Ukraine.”