Announcing the Winners of the “Leadership School for Young Women in European Integration” Mini-Grant Competition!

A few months ago, these were conversations, notes, questions and first drafts. Then came training sessions, consultations with mentors, applications, presentations and project pitches. Today, we are ready to announce the projects that will receive support within the “Leadership School for Young Women in European Integration.”

Mini-grant competition winners:

📍 DNIPRO

✅ Liudmyla Babik — “A Child as a Resource”: a psychological support group for mothers raising children with disabilities, based on shared creative activities with their children.

✅ Sofiia Mezentseva — “Clay That Connects: Cultural Heritage and Creativity as a Space for Recovery and Social Cohesion.”

✅ Halyna Veselova — “Family at the Centre: A Space for Support, Interaction and Resilience.”

📍 KYIV

✅ Tetiana Bizhan — “I Can”, a practical career exploration project for teenagers with Down syndrome. As part of the project, eight teenagers will take part in hands-on vocational activities and try themselves in the roles of burger maker, florist and pastry chef.

✅ Oksana Pochapska — “The Power of a New Start”, a school of economic empowerment and entrepreneurship for 50 women from the Kyiv community.

✅ Anastasiia Odnovolyk — “Youth Model of the Ramstein Format”, an educational project for university students introducing them to the international Ukraine Defence Contact Group (Ramstein Format) through practical simulation.

📍 CHERNIVTSI

✅ Olha Obersht — “Acupuncture of Solutions: School of Civic Participation for Young Women”, a practical initiative for young women in Chernivtsi designed to help them understand how the city works, who makes decisions, and how citizens can influence those decisions.

✅ Maryna Shvartsman — creation and presentation of the photo exhibition “I Am Alive!”, a project telling the stories of ten wives of fallen Ukrainian service members.

✅ Olena Chepukh and Liudmyla Shevchyk — “From Hope to Action”, an initiative aimed at strengthening the leadership and civic potential of women from families of service members who are prisoners of war or officially listed as missing.

These ideas are very different, but they are united by a desire to create meaningful change.

As we congratulate the winners today, we also want to address every participant of the School. We know how much work, time and courage you invested in your ideas and presentations. Unfortunately, the resources available within the competition do not allow us to support every project, but the selection results in no way diminish the value of the work you have done.

For some participants, the idea had existed for a long time; for others, it took shape during the training itself. We hope that the School, the knowledge and connections gained, and the experience of developing your own project will give you a strong foundation to continue developing your ideas and looking for opportunities to bring them to life.

Thank you to every participant for your motivation, openness and willingness to try.

And for the winners, the most exciting stage begins now — implementation.

We look forward to seeing how ideas that only recently existed on paper turn into concrete actions in your communities.

The project is implemented by the Public Resources and Initiatives Charity Foundation in partnership with KWB Koordinierungsstelle Weiterbildung und Beschäftigung e. V., with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt).