“Time to act, Ukraine!”: 150 winners to raise more than UAH 40 million for community development
Therapeutic gardens and rehabilitation environments for veterans, resource rooms, cinema facilities, and hubs for youth, as well as needed medical equipment for hospitals. Within the “Time to act, Ukraine!” competition, the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation will support 150 projects totaling more than UAH 14 million.
The organizers of the social initiatives competition “Time to act, Ukraine!” announced the winners to receive up to UAH 100,000 for their project implementation. Grants will be allocated to support local initiatives aimed at solving vital social issues in communities. This year, a record number of applications were submitted to the competition — 912.
“This competition is the manifestation of our mission to help communities gather up to solve their social, economic, and environmental issues. Year by year, the projects become more interesting and indicate trends within the communities. Thus, in 2016, the projects were about window replacement and road repair, nowadays, they are about veteran facilities, shelters to be used as educational spaces, youth hubs for informal meetings and communication, for example,” said Tetiana Volochai, Head of the Community Development Council of the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation.
This year, the total budget of the winning projects amounted to UAH 40.8 million. The amount of grants by the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation will be UAH 14 million, while the amount of co-financing — UAH 26.76 million. This is a record amount of co-financing the competition winners plan to allocate for the implementation of their projects in the communities.
“I would like to note the high-quality elaboration of projects and budgets. It is obvious that the participants learn and improve their skills in project activities. We also observed their willingness and interest to co-finance as the participants’ contribution to projects exceeded 50% of the total budget. We hope this competition will become a major driver for the communities’ development in the area of a project-oriented approach,” said Volodymyr Panchenko, National Projects Manager of the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation.
Project areas supported within the competition:
Energy security — 2 projects
Preserving traditions and cultural heritage — 15 projects
Reintegration and rehabilitation of veterans — 35 projects
Public space development — 26 projects
System projects in the education, healthcare, and infrastructure sectors — 72 projects.
“We observe a trend of the projects’ quality increasing year by year. They become more elaborate. There were interesting cultural projects aimed at preserving the memory of the large-scale invasion start, of the war in general,” noted Artem Kostiuchenko, head of the national partnerships department of the Ukrainian Education Platform Charitable Organization.
The competition expert commission, which determined the winners, was comprised of Nataliia Kryvda, Ph.D., Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation; Kostiantyn Tatarkin, technical advisor of IREX’s Veteran Reintegration Program; Artem Kostiuchenko, head of the national partnerships department of the Ukrainian Education Platform Charitable Organization; Maksym Cherkashyn, head of the Educational and Analytical Center of Community Development; Iryna Moriak, Zmistovno project manager, Nova Ukraine; Ivanna Stets, senior manager of Veteran Hub partnerships; Anastasiia Rudnitska, grant manager of Veteran Hub.
The complete list of winners is available on the website of the “Time to Act, Ukraine!” competition
Information about the competition. All-Ukrainian competition of social initiatives Time to Act, Ukraine! is held for the ninth year in a row by the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation. Its mission is to make communities places where people wish to live.
The main objective of the “Time to Act, Ukraine!” competition is to help solve vital social issues within communities via the financial support of local initiatives responding to the challenges of war: from veteran hubs to inclusive facilities, from establishing shelters to launching rehabilitation programs. Local self-government bodies, municipal companies, enterprises, organizations, medical and educational institutions, civil society organizations, and public associations can submit their projects.