By Olha Chepil | 2024-10-24

KYIV -- Among the biggest challenges spawned by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a demographic and migration crisis -- and the multiple stresses associated with displacement.

Almost 5 million Ukrainians have left the country, while more than 4.7 million residents of Ukraine are categorized as internally displaced persons, according to official statistics.

To help those displaced by war, local authorities in collaboration with the government and with support from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have opened several "Resilience Centers" across the country.

The initiative is part of "How are U?", a mental health program spearheaded by Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska.

Crucial support

A new Resilience Center opened October 3 in Kyiv for displaced persons from Mariupol district, Donetsk province. About 30 individuals of various ages came to the opening: young mothers with children, retirees and veterans.

All of them departed the Russian-occupied part of eastern Ukraine to start a new life in the capital.

Before the war, Veronika Babak was a librarian in Mykilske hromada (municipality), Mariupol district.

In June 2022, after Russian invaders occupied Mykilske, she and her daughter fled to Kyiv.

"I thought we'd be here for two months, but it's been almost three years," Babak told Kontur, tearing up as she recalled her job and former life.

Now she runs the library for visitors at the new Resilience Center in Kyiv. She is thrilled to have a place where she can gather regularly with the other former residents of Mykilske now in Kyiv.

"Mykilske hromada is in close touch with its residents who, like me, were forced to leave," Babak said. "This is a place where you can see people you know. And in a city as big as Kyiv, that's crucial."

The centers provide an array of services: psychosocial support, positive parenting courses, day care for children with disabilities, early childhood intervention, domestic violence prevention and response programs, support for veterans, crisis intervention and conflict resolution.

Helping children through play

The center in Kyiv also has a separate room with a child psychologist.

"Children have been traumatized during the war," said Nataliia Lipchak, a psychologist at the center.

"This trauma can manifest itself in different ways: it might show up in their behavior or in their dreams. They might sleep poorly or become frightened," she told Kontur. "My job is to keep the child occupied, and it's better to do that through play."

The new Resilience Center has a pottery wheel to keep the children's minds off fear and war, Lipchak said.

During one visit, Solomiya, Babak's 6-year-old daughter, was trying to shape a mug, but it came out looking like a tower.

Solomiya misses her relatives and friends.

"I like living in Kyiv," she told Kontur. "But the war made my family move, and now they live in different places in Ukraine and the world."

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mykilske hromada had about 1,700 residents. Some of the residents stayed after the Russian occupation, but the majority left like the Babaks.

Almost 1,300 of its members live in the part of the country controlled by Ukraine, mostly in Kyiv. The Resilience Center lets them congregate with relatives, friends and neighbors.

"This initiative is focused on holding hromadas together -- that is, they're not there just to provide counseling to one [patient] at a time," Iryna Kharchenko, the coordinator of the resilience centers, told Kontur.

"The most important thing is to bring people together so that these hromadas are unified," she said. "That's where their resilience lies."

'Strong and resilient'

About 160 Resilience Centers operate in Ukraine. Organizers plan to increase this number to 200 by the end of the year and to double it in 2025.

Any hromada may apply to open a center, and in 2024, 200 regional hromadas signed on to the initiative.

In addition to the children's room and library, the center in Kyiv has a clinic with doctors, lawyers, psychologists and other specialists ready to help visitors. Services are free.

"The first thing we do is survey the residents of the hromada to ask them what they need," Svitlana Melnichuk, the social manager of the center, told Kontur. "And then they say, we want to crochet, or we want to dance ... or we want counseling -- especially those who have lost someone close to them or are in a family whose father is in the army."

"Whatever the community asks for, we work with that," she said.

Kyiv pays the specialists' salaries, and it is seeking contributions from international partners and charities.

"Why resilience? It's not enough just to survive. It's essential to be resistant to the challenges we've been facing since Russia's invasion began," said Iryna Chagovets, the social service development director at Save Ukraine.

"We need to be equipped to adapt under all circumstances and continue to be strong and resilient and help each other," she told Kontur.

'Spiritual experience'

The center also serves troops and veterans.

Veteran Oleksandr Morozov, originally from Donetsk province, first went to fight Russia in 2016.

He was captured by the Russians in 2022 and held for 21 months. Following a prisoner exchange, he now lives in Kyiv.

Morozov is not an artist, but he picked up a paintbrush for the first time at the center.

"I desperately wanted to paint the Eiffel Tower because I've always dreamed of seeing it in person," he told Kontur. "I feel comfortable at the center -- there are people here like me. They paint too. It's like a spiritual experience. Everything we went through is here in our pictures. There are no professional artists here. Everyone has painted from the heart. "